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COLLEGE AND STATE 
VOLUME TWO 





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The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson 
Authorised Edition 


COLLEGE AND STATE 


Educational, Literary and Political 
Papers (1875-1913) 


tae 


WOODROW WILSON 


EDITED BY 
RAY STANNARD BAKER anp WILLIAM E. DODD 





IN TWO VOLUMES 


VOLUME II 


HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 
MDCCCCXXV 


CONTENTS 


THE Spirit OF LEARNING 


Oration delivered before Phi hea rea Cites at 
Cambridge, Mass., July 1, 1909. From the Harvard 
Graduates’ Mavazine. September, 1909, Vol. 18, 


pp. I-14. 
Tue TarirF MAKE-BELIEVE . 


From the North American Review, Onsnes 1909, 
Vol. 190, pp. 535-556. 


"Tre IpEAL UNIVERSITY) (c= sete Wake 


From Mr. Wilson’s original typewritten manuscript 
with his pen-and-ink corrections, dated “Princeton 
University, 6 July 1909,” and signed with his auto- 
graph. 
Published in Delineator, November, 1909, Vol. 74, 
p. 401. 


Wuat Is a CoLueceE For? . 


From Scribner’s Magazine, NOvEEbee 1909, Vol. 3 
Pp. 570-577. 


‘THE MINISTRY AND THE INDIVIDUAL . 


Address before the McCormick Theological Sut ae 
at Chicago, November 2, 1909. Chicago, Lakeside 
Press, 1910, pp. 163-173. 


PoLiTicAL REFORM 


Address at the City Club of Philadelphia, Noscanee 
18, 1909. From the Close Manuscripts at Prince- 
ton University. 


Livinc PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY 


From Harper's Weekly, April 9, 1910, Vol. 54, pp. 
9-10. 


ADDRESS TO PIfTSBURGH ALUMNI . 


Delivered at Pittsburgh banquet, Act 1910. 
From Pittsburgh Dispatch, April 17, 1910. 


HiwE AND SEEK Po.uitics .. . 


From the North American pee Veen I9IO, Vol. 
IQI, pp. 585-601. 


vi 


PAGE 
102 


I20 


147 


160 


178 


188 


193 


202 


204 


CONTENTS 


BANKERS AND STATESMANSHIP. 

Address before the New Jersey Ritira! \ Adbexasoes 
at Atlantic City, May 6, 1910. 

From the Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Con- 
vention of the New Jersey Bankers’ Association, pp. 
$1-87. 

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS . . . 

Last address at Princeton University, io 12, een 
From original typewritten manuscript bearing Mr. 
Wilson’s own corrections, at the Library of Prertaa 
University. 

Tue Lawyer AND THE COMMUNITY. . 

Annual address delivered before the ] ee Bar 
Association at Chattanooga, Tennessee, August 31, 
1910. 

From Mr. Wilson’s original typewritten manuscript, 
containing his changes in pen and ink, in the Prince- 
ton University Library. 

Letrer oF RESIGNATION FROM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
Read at meeting of board of trustees on October 20, 
1910. From Princeton Alumni W eekly, October 26, 
1910, Vol. 2, p. 68. 

InaucuRAL Appress as GovERNOoR OF New JERSEY . 
Delivered January 17, 1911. From the Journal of 
the Senate of New Jersey for 1911, pp. 58-68. 

Issues oF FREEDOM . 

Address delivered at aca = +e Knife — Fork 
Club of Kansas City, Missouri, May 5, 1971. From 
pamphlet. 

THe Bratz aND ProcREss. . . 

Address in the Auditorium, oe Cae at ee 
tercentenary celebration of the translation of the 
Bible into the English language, May 7, 1911. From 
Congressional Record, 62d Congress, 2d Session, 
Vol. 48, Appendix, pp. 499-502. 

Democracy’s OpporkTUNITY . 

Address at rally of Pe Cheba! at Hapa 
Pennsylvania, June 15, 1911. From Congressional 
Record, 62d Congress, 2d Session, Vol. 48, Appendix 
Pp. 519-520. 


vii 


PAGe 
225 


234 


245 


269 


270 


283 


291 


303 


CONTENTS 


THe LAWYER IN POLITICS . ; , 
Address before the Kentucky Bar Meee ae at Led 
ington, Kentucky, July 12, 1911. From Congressional 
Record, 62d Congress, 2d Session, Vol. 48, Appendix, 
pp. 498-499. 


THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWS . 
Address at Carnegie Hall, New York, Deeabee 6, 
1911. From increment Record, 62d Congress, od 
Session, Vol. 48, Appendix, pp. 497-498. 


On THE INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL 
Letter to Professor R. H. Dabney of the University 


of Virginia, published in the Richmond Times Dis- 
patch, December 26, 1911. 


THE TARIFF . 
Address before iti Natal ees ‘Club, nee 


York, January 3, 1912. From Coker aonnl Rec- 
ord, 62d Congress, 2d Session, Vol. 48, pp. 4748- 


4752. 
Jackson Day DINNER ADDRESS cE clipedsie acs 
Delivered at Washington, January g 1912. From 


Congressional Record, 62d Congress, od Session, Vol. 
48, PP. 4745-4747. 

EFFICIENCY : ns baeetnen ueee Shae 
Address sea at a Pee of the or estate men 
of Boston at the City Club, January 27, 1912. Intro- 
duced by Richard Olney, Secretary of State during 
the administration of President Cleveland. From 
Congressional Record, 62d Congress, 2d Session, Vol. 
48, Appendix, pp. 495-497. 

RICHMOND ADDRESS : 

Address delivered before Ae eo ean ee 
Virginia and the City Council of Richmond on Feb- 


ruary I, 1912. From Congressional Record, 62d 
Congress, 2d Session, Vol. 48, pp. 3319-3922. 


LINCOLN’s BirTHDAY 


Address before the Tactet Club of Chie Hotel 
La Salle, on Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, 19172. 
In pamphlet. 


vill 


PAGE 
310 


318 


323 


325 


344 


354 


367 


389 


CONTENTS 


THe TagirF ANDTHE TrRusTts.- - .- 
Aa eecsed ot Heckel Econo, iene 
24, 1912. From pamphlet 

Wear Jerrmsons Woturp Do .. =. 
ee ak a ae pee Sh Leet 
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, April aS ea 
From Conzgressional Record, 62d Congress, 2d 
som, Vol 45. pp. 4747-4745. 

GovERNMENT IN Rezation To BusiINess 
SL ee ee ee ee ee 
m the Hotel Astor, New York City, May 23, 1912. 
From Congressisozal Record. 62d Congress, 2d Se 
som, Vol. 48, Appendix. pp. 392-396. 

SprecH oF ACCEPTANCE . . 
Speech delivered August 7, ae 
Jersey, acceptmg the Democratic nommzation for 
President of the United States. From Senate Docu- 
ment 903, 62d Congress, 2d Session. 


PaGz 


430 


452 


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COLLEGE AND STATE 


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POLITICS 
(1857-1907) 


FROM THE “ATLANTIC MONTHLY,’ NOVEMBER, 1907, 
VOL. C, PP. 635-46. 


Ww are separated from the year 1857 as men of 
one age are separated from those of another, 
We live amidst scenes and circumstances to which the 
events of that day can hardly be made to seem even a 
prelude. A stupendous civil war and the economic and 
political reconstruction of a nation have been crowded 
into the brief space of fifty years,—one era closed and 
another opened,—and it hardly seems possible that men 
now living can recollect as the happenings of a single 
lifetime events which seem to have wrought the effect 
of a couple of centuries. It was in fact the comple- 
tion of one great process and the beginning of another. 
The process by which a nation was created and unified 
came at last to an end, and a still more fateful process 
began which was to determine its place and example 
in the general history of the world. Whether the new 
century we have entered upon will carry us to the com- 
pletion of another phase of our life remains to be seen. 

So far, a century seems to have been our dramatic 
unit: one century, the seventeenth, we spent upon the 
processes of settlement; another, the eighteenth, in clear- 
ing the continental spaces we had chosen for our own 
of all serious rivals, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, 
and in making ourselves free of oversight and interfer- 
ence from oversea; a third in constituting a nation, 
giving it government and homogeneity of life and in- 
stitutions; and now we have entered upon a fourth cen- 
tury, and are sometimes in doubt what we shall do with 

I 


* COLLEGE AND STATE 


it. We have for the nonce no clear purpose or pro- 
gramme. We are finding ourselves in a new age, amidst 
new questions and new opportunities, and shall have a 
clear vision of what we are about only when common 
counsel shall have further steadied and enlightened us. 

If assessed by events, the year 1857 was not a year 
of particular significance. It was rather a year between 
times, when the sweep of events seemed to pause, and 
some were tempted to interpret the signs of the times 
as signs of peace, it seeming on the surface as if old 
issues were in some sort concluded and a time of set- 
tled policy at hand. Men who looked beneath the sur- 
face could, of course, see that no peace or settled mode 
of action could come out of opinions and policies consti- 
tuted as were the opinions and policies they then saw 
to be the ruling elements of politics. Such, among 
others, were the men who founded the Atlantic 
Monthly. And yet it was at least a year quiet and undis- 
turbed enough to afford the historian an opportunity 
to look about him, and take stock of what had come 
and was coming. It was a year in which one chapter 
may close and another open, as if at a pause or turning- 
point in the narrative. 

The year 1856 had witnessed a presidential election, 
and in March, 1857, Mr. Buchanan became President 
in the place of Mr. Pierce, Democrat succeeding Demo- 
crat; but some significant things had taken place within 
the Democratic ranks within the four years that had 
elapsed since Mr. Pierce was elected. In 1848, Mr. 
Polk, the Democratic candidate, had carried fifteen out 
of the twenty-six states that then constituted the Union; 
in 1852 Mr. Pierce had received the electoral votes of 
every state except Vermont, Massachusetts, Tennessee, 
and Kentucky; but Mr. Buchanan had received the sup- 
port of no states outside the South except Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois. His party, from 
being national, had seemed amidst the new ordering of 
affairs to become of a sudden little more than sectional, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 8 


and, in spite of its success and, its apparent confidence, 
seemed touched, as other parties were, with change and 
decay. The Democratic party had had its easy suc- 
cesses at the last three presidential elections largely be- 
cause other parties were going to pieces and it held 
together unbroken and with definite purpose with re- 
gard to the main issues of the day; but at last its own 
followers were yielding to the influences of divided 
opinion, and few besides its southern adherents re- 
mained steadfast of purpose. 

The slavery question had proved an effectual dis- 
solvent of parties,—not the question of the continued 
existence of slavery in the Southern States, but the ques- 
tion of the extension of slavery into the regions of set- 
tlement where new territories and states were being 
erected. It seemed a question impossible of definitive 
settlement until the ceaseless movement of population 
should come naturally to an end and the spaces of the 
continent should have been filled in everywhere with 
communities which had chosen their own order of life. 
Attempt after attempt had been made to determine it 
beforehand. The great Ordinance of 1787, contem- 
poraneous with the making of the Constitution itself, 
had excluded slavery from the broad Northwest Terri- 
tory which the States had ceded to the Union as a 
nursery of new commonwealths; the Missouri Com- 
promise had excluded it from so much of the territory 
embraced within the Louisiana Purchase as lay north 
of the southern boundary of Missouri extended; and the 
extensive State of California, a small empire of itself, 
cut out of the vast territories snatched from Mexico, 
had been admitted as a State with a constitution of her 
own making which excluded slavery, thus determining 
the critical matter for the only portion of that great 
region with regard to which the movement of popula- 
tion rendered its immediate settlement imperative. Set- 
tlers by the tens of thousands had rushed into Califor- 
nia upon the discovery of gold. ‘The discovery had 


4 COLLEGE AND STATE 


been made the very month the treaty of Guadalupe- 
Hidalgo was signed (February, 1848), and before Con- 
gress was ready to legislate for the new possessions, 
California had become a self-governing community of 
the familiar frontier pattern, with ruling spirits to 
whom it was impossible to dictate law they did not like. 
The gold-hunters and the tradesmen who went with 
them neither had slaves nor wanted them, and Con- 
gress had no choice but to admit them as a state upon 
terms of their own making. And the rest of the Mexi- © 
can cession it left open to be taken care of by the for- 
tunes of settlement and the preference of its first occu- 
pants, after the same fashion. Such had been the terms 
of the famous Compromise of 1850, which also shut 
the odious slave trade out of the District of Columbia 
and provided southern slave-owners with a stringent 
Fugitive Slave Law which enabled them to recover their 
runaway slaves by simple and effective process through 
the action of the local officials of the federal govern- 
ment itself. That great Compromise, upon which Mr. 
Clay had spent the last years of his life and power,— 
that latest ‘‘settlement’’ of the irrepressible question,— 
was but six years old when Mr. Buchanan was chosen 
President. | 

But each successive handling of the critical matter 
seemed rather to unsettle than to determine it; and 
this last attempt to deal with it proved the least con- 
clusive of all,—seemed, indeed, purposely to leave it 
open with regard at any rate to so much of the Mexi- 
can cession as was not included within the boundaries 
of the new State of California. Mr. Calhoun had ex- 
plicitly denied the right of the federal government to 
exclude slaves, the legal property of such settlers as 
might come from the South, from the territories of the 
United States, and had declared it as his opinion, and 
that of all southern men who thought clearly of their 
rights under the partnership of the Union, that the peo- 
ple of the several territories, wherever situated, whether 


COLLEGE AND STATE 5 


on the one side or the other of compromise lines, had 
the constitutional right “‘to act as they pleased upon the 
subject of the status of the negro race amongst them, 
as upon other subjects of internal policy, when they 
came to form their constitutions,” and to apply for ad- 
mission to the Union as states. The Compromise of 
1850 had been framed upon that principle; and that 
compromise was not four years old, Mr. Calhoun was 
not four years dead, before the new principle had been 
enacted into law, to the sweeping away of all former 
compromises and arrangements. 

It had been an astonishing reversal of policy, brought 
about by a man of surprising vigor and directness, who 
for a little while seemed the leader of the country. Not 
Mr. Calhoun only, but Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay were 
dead; a new generation was on the stage, and its leader, 
while parties changed, was Stephen A. Douglas, since 
1847 one of the senators from Illinois. No man better 
fitted for confident and aggressive leadership in an age 
of doubt and confusion could have been found, even in 
the western country from which he came. He was but 
forty-one, but had won every step of his way for him- 
self since he came a lad out of Vermont, and knew how 
to work his will with men and circumstances. His ap- 
pearance bespoke what he was. He was short of stat- 
ure, but gave the impression of mass and extraordinary 
vigor, carrying his square, firmly set head with its mass 
of dark hair with an alert poise that gave their right 
bearing to his deep-set eyes and mouth of determined 
line. His friends dubbed him the Little Giant, with 
affectionate familiarity; and his opponents found in him 
a candor that matched his fearlessness, a daring and 
readiness of wit that were the more formidable in con- 
tests before the people because he was a bit coarse- 
fibred and could be counted on to hold his own in any 
sort of debate. He had in a certain sense taken Mr. 
Benton’s place in the Senate. His chief interest was 
in the development of the western country, the new 


6 COLLEGE AND STATE 


communities constantly making to the westward, which 
were like the Illinois of his own youth, and carried so 
much of the vigor and initiative of American life; and 
he had by natural selection become chairman of the Sen- 
ate’s Committee on Territories. West of Lowa and 
Missouri stretched the great Platte country all the way 
to the Rockies, and across it ran the trails which were 
the highways into the far West. The western Indians 
had their hunting grounds there upon the plains, and the 
authorities at Washington had once and again thought 
of allotting to them an extensive reservation which 
should secure them in their hunting privileges. Mr. 
Douglas feared that something of that kind might 
throw a barrier across the main lines of the westward 
movement which he watched with such sympathy and 
interest, and had more than once urged the erection of 
a territory in the Platte country. In 1854 he had had 
his will, and had quickened the approach of revolution 
by the way in which he chose to have it. 

His measure, as finally submitted to the Senate, pro- 
vided for the creation of two territories, one lying im- 
mediately to the west of Missouri and to be known as 
Kansas, and the other, to be known as Nebraska, 
stretching northward upon the great plains through 
which the Platte found its way to the Missouri. Both 
lay north of the southern boundary of Missouri ex- 
tended, the historic line of the Missouri Compromise, 
established now these thirty-three years, but Mr. Doug- 
las declared himself impelled by ‘‘a proper sense of 
patriotic duty” to set that compromise aside and to act 
upon the principle of the later compromise of 1850, 
legislation which had been framed but the other day 
to compose the agitation of parties. The bill which 
he introduced, therefore, explicitly declared the Mis- 
souri Compromise “inoperative and void,” and left the 
matter of the extension of slavery into the new terri- 
tories entirely to the sovereign choice of the people who 
should occupy them. 


COLLEGE AND STATE “ 


Mr. Douglas did not wish to see slavery extended; 
he was simply taking what seemed to him the straightest 
way to the settlement of a vexed question which ap- 
parently could be settled in no other way. He did not 
expect the settlers of the new country to accept or de- 
sire slavery; he expected them to reject it. But whether 
they accepted it or rejected it, he thought them the best 
judges of such a question, affecting their own life and 
social makeup; and he did not believe that in any case 
Congress could either successfully or constitutionally 
determine such a matter beforehand. There were men 
in the Senate who earnestly opposed what he sought 
to do: Seward, and Sumner, and Chase, and Fish, and 
Foote, and Wade were there, the representatives of a 
new party which had devoted itself to this very task 
of blocking the extension of slavery; but they did not 
avail against the confident Democratic majority, which 
seemed to find a certain exhilaration in having obtained 
at last a leader who did not propose compromises but 
was willing to venture the open contests which only 
actual settlement and the direct action of the people 
themselves could conclude. It seemed clearly Demo- 
cratic doctrine, this doctrine of ‘‘squatter sovereignty,” 
and they accepted it with a certain zest and sense as 
of relief. 

They must have seen how direct a challenge it was 
to the rival interests, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, to at- 
tempt a conquest of the new territories. Not that there 
was any question about Nebraska. That lay too far 
north to be available for the extension into it of the 
southern system. But that system had got its estab- 
lished foothold already in Missouri, and Kansas lay 
close neighbor to slave territory within the same par- 
allels of latitude; and so far as her lands were con- 
cerned the challenge was accepted,—accepted in a way 
that held the attention of the whole country. It was 
a very tragic thing that ensued. Settlers out of the 
slave-owning states just at hand were naturally the first 


8 COLLEGE AND ‘STATE 


to enter the new territory, taking their slaves with them; 
but there presently began a movement of settlers out 
of the North which was of no ordinary kind. Nothing 
could have stimulated active opposition to the exten- 
sion of slavery more than what Mr. Douglas had done. 
He had notified the country that law was neither here 
nor there in such a matter; that there was no legis- 
lative body that had the authority to say beforehand 
whether slaves could go with the settlers who entered 
the new lands of the national domain or not; that the 
predominance of men who wished slavery or did-not 
wish it—their predominance, not in the nation, but in 
the territories themselves—must determine the ques- 
tion. In brief, he had made it a question of numbers, 
a question of conquest, of prevailing majorities on the 
one side or the other. Kansas therefore began to be 
peopled as no other territory had been. Settlers were 
sent there by organized effort. Individuals and societies 
in the North set themselves to work to find the men 
and the means to take possession of it, and the new 
settlers came prepared for anything that might prove 
to be necessary to establish themselves or their princi- 
ples in the new territory, whether legal or illegal, under- 
standing that it was not to be a process of law but an 
act of choice made in any form of fact. It was an op- 
portunity for desperate men, as well as for peaceful 
immigrants who wanted homes and came to till the 
broad, level acres of the prairie; and desperate men 
availed themselves of it. Kansas became a veritable 
battlefield. Men stopped at no violence to prevail, 
and flames of partisan warfare burst forth there which 
threatened, as every one saw, to spread to the whole 
Union. 

Mr. Douglas’s principles were put to the test the 
very year Mr. Buchanan became President. Until that 
year the pro-slavery men who had come out of Missouri 
and the farther South had predominated in numbers in 
Kansas, and had pressed their advantage with character- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 9 


istic energy and initiative. Before they had lost their 
majority by the pouring in of settlers coming faster and 
faster out of the North, they had called a constitutional 
convention, and had submitted to the people of the 
territory an instrument which established slavery by 
organic law. One of the first things it fell to Mr. Bu- 
chanan to do was to submit to Congress their applica- 
tion for admission to the Union as a state under that 
instrument. But Mr. Douglas would not vote to ac- 
cept the new state on those terms, and there were men 
enough of his opinion in the Democratic ranks to ex- 
clude it. He knew that, even at the time the consti- 
tution which was submitted with the application was 
in process of being drawn and submitted, the weight 
of opinion in the territory had shifted, and that when 
the popular vote upon it was taken the majority of the 
voters of the territory were against it. Multitudes had 
refrained from voting upon the question of its accep- 
tance at all, because they had felt that they were being 
tricked. ‘The instrument was not submitted to them 
to be accepted or rejected, but to be accepted “with 
slavery” or ‘‘without slavery,’’—all other provisions 
contained in it in any case to go into effect; and it was 
clear from the text of it that to vote for it ‘‘without 
slavery” would not in fact exclude slavery; because 
clauses which were quite independent of the organic pro- 
‘vision in question threw effective safeguards about the 
ownership of slaves, which would in all probability in 
any case indirectly secure it. This was not ‘squatter 
sovereignty.’ Whatever might be said of Mr. Doug- 
las’s doctrine, he held it candidly and in all sincerity, 
and would not consent to deal falsely with it; and at 
the certain risk of losing the confidence of the south- 
ern wing of his party, now its chief and controlling 
wing, he voted against the admission of Kansas under 
a pro-slavery constitution, notwithstanding the fact that 
the President backed it with his recognition as, in form 


10 COLLEGE AND STATE 


at any rate, the legally expressed wish of the people of 
the territory. 

And so things stood in the year 1857, a very doubtful 
face upon them,—a vast deal undone that had seemed 
at least to give definite form and security to the move- 
ments of politics, and nothing done by way of new defini- 
tion or settlement. And then, as if to complete the con- 
fusion and destroy even Mr. Douglas’s principle of ac- 
tion, came the Dred Scott decision, and the country 
learned that in the opinion of the Supreme Court of 
the United States the people of a territory had no more 
right than Congress to forbid the holding of slaves as 
chattels within their boundaries. Dred Scott was a 
negro of Missouri, whose master had taken him first 
into one of the States from which slavery was excluded 
by local law, and then into one of the territories from 
which slavery had been excluded by the congressional 
legislation of 1820, the famous Missouri Compromise. 
After his return to Missouri and the death of his mas- 
ter, Scott sought to obtain his freedom on the ground 
that his temporary residence on free soil had operated 
to annul his master’s rights over him. ‘The court not 
only decided against him: it went much farther and 
undertook a systematic exposition of its opinion with 
regard to the legal status of slavery in national politics. 
It declared that in its opinion slaves were not citizens 
within the meaning of the Constitution of the United 
States, but property, and that neither Congress nor the 
legislature of a territory—the power of a territorial 
government being only the power of Congress dele- 
gated—could legislate with hostile intent against any 
species of property belonging to citizens of the United 
States; that the compromise legislation of 1820 had been 
ultra vires and had no legal effect; and that under our 
constitutional allotment of powers only states could 
make valid laws concerning property, whether in slaves 
or in anything else. The repeal of the compromise 
measures of 1820 by Mr. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska 


COLLEGE AND STATE II 


Bill of 1854 had not been necessary. They had been 
legally null from the first. The Dred Scott decision was 
uttered two days after Mr. Buchanan’s inauguration. 
As if there were not grounds enough of uneasiness, 
financial distress was added,—not because of the politi- 
cal fears and disquietude of the time, though they no 
doubt played their part in disturbing the minds of men 
of business and clouding their calculations of the fu- 
ture,—but because of the operation of forces familiar 
enough in financial history. An era of extraordinary 
enterprise had followed the rapid extension of railways 
and the successful establishment of steam navigation 
on the seas, and the discovery of gold in California had 
added excitement to enterprise when stimulation was 
not necessary and excitement was very dangerous. It 
was hard at best to give solidity and prudent limit to 
industrial and commercial undertakings which sought 
to keep pace with the growth of a new nation, to follow 
a people constantly moving everywhere into new lands, 
spreading their thin and scattered settlements far and 
near upon the practically unlimited spaces of a great 
continent. It was a speculative process in any case, 
based upon necessarily uncertain calculations as to the 
movement of population and the development of indus- 
try. The very railways which facilitated enterprise 
were themselves hazardous pieces of business, and had 
been pushed so fast and far through sparsely settled 
districts as to give those who invested in them scant re- 
turn for their money, when they gave them any return 
at all and did not prove utter financial failures, so far 
as those were concerned who met their first cost. The 
speculative element in business, necessarily present 
everywhere, had grown larger and larger until, added 
to mere waste and bad management and flat dishonesty, 
there had come an inevitable crash of credit, and in the 
reaction business was prostrated. ‘The crisis came in 
the winter which followed the presidential election of 
1856, and Mr. Buchanan’s term of office began when its 


12 COLLEGE AND STATE 


effects were freshest and most depressing. It did not 
wear the features of panic, after the first crash had 
come, so much as of mere lethargy. Enterprise was at 
a standstill: the face of all business was dead; men not 
only did not venture, they did not hope: they were 
stunned, and the spirit taken out of them. 

It was one of the significant signs of the times that no 
particular political importance was attribued to these 
financial disturbances. No one sought to make political 
capital of them. No doubt the uneasiness of the time, 
the removal of old political foundations by the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, the apparent transforma- 
tion of the process of settlement into a process of civil 
war in Kansas, the rising passion of conviction that the 
contest of parties upon the question of slavery must 
presently come to some hot issue, contributed to con- 
firm merchants and manufacturers and bankers and 
transportation companies in the opinion that nothing 
was safe that depended upon calculations of future ad- 
vantage; but such matters lay apart from what polli- 
ticians were chiefly thinking of, seemed to belong among 
the ordinary interests of the country’s every-day life, 
and not among the extraordinary interests they were 
called on to handle, interests that loomed bigger and 
more ominous the more closely they were approached, 
the more intimately they were dealt with. Nothing 
financial was for the time being of party significance 
or interest. It was even possible to revise the tariff 
without party contest, in the interest of business in- | 
stead of in the interest of politicians. It seemed to 
men of all parties that the tariff as it stood contributed 
to the financial distress of the time. It was steadily 
drawing into the Treasury a surplus of funds which the 
government did not use and which it was at that time 
especially inconvenient to withdraw from circulation. 
It was agreed, therefore, to put many of the raw mate- 
rials of manufacture, hitherto taxed, on the free list, 
and to reduce the general level of duties to twenty-four 


COLLEGE AND STATE 13 


per cent. Not since the War of 1812 had it been possi- 
ble to arrange such a matter so amicably, with so little 
debate, with such immediate concert of action. The 
interest of parties was evidently withdrawn to other 
things. 

These friendly debates, Mr. Buchanan’s decisive ma- 
jority in the electoral college, and the apparent dis- 
persion of all organized elements of opposition, might 
give to the year 1857, as we look back to it, a decep- 
tive air of peace. Even the radical views of the Su- 
preme Court in deciding the Dred Scott case, and the 
uncomfortable matter of determining the right of Kan- 
sas to enter the Union with a pro-slavery constitution, 
might be made to look like the end of a process of 
change rather than the beginning of things still more 
radical and doubtful of issue, if one were seeking signs 
of accommodation and were satisfied to look no deeper 
than the surface. Undoubtedly 1857 was a year of 
pause, when the strains of politics were for the moment 
eased. It seemed a year of peace and settled policy. 

It was in fact, however, the pause which precedes 
concerted and decisive movements of opinion upon mat- 
ters too critical to form the ordinary subjects of party 
contest. Parties will join issue as hotly as you please 
upon any ordinary question of the nation’s life, even 
though the elements of that question cut perilously 
deep into individual interests and involve radical eco- 
nomic or political changes; but they waver, postpone, 
and evade when they come within sight of questions 
which cut as deep and swing through as wide a com- 
pass as did that which divided North and South, and 
seemed to involve the very character and perpetuation 
of the Union of the States. The Democratic party had 
held a steady enough course upon the question of slavery. 
No doubt it was the easier course to maintain,—the 
course which seemed only a fulfillment of the older 
understandings of our constitutional system, only a 
working out of the policy of the country on lines long 


14 COLLEGE AND STATE 


established and, it might be, inevitable. No doubt, too, 
the definite principles and undeviating purposes of the 
Southern men who constituted so important an element 
of the strength of the party, and who furnished from 
the ranks of their politicians so many men who had 
the capacity and the desire to lead, gave the party a 
leadership and a motive for framing definite pro- 
grammes which the party of opposition lacked; and in a 
time of vacillation and doubt the confident party, with 
a mind of its own, has always the advantage. But, for 
whatever reason, the Democrats had so far remained 
for the most part of one mind and purpose, and other 
parties had gone to pieces. Only within the year had 
it begun to look as if a party ready to face the Demo- 
crats with resolute purpose and determined programme 
would at last form. The Whig party had finally gone 
to pieces in the presidential campaign of 1852. It had 
never been a party to declare its principles very strongly 
at critical moments or to espouse a cause very definitely 
in a time of doubt. It had had splendid leaders. The 
annals of the country have been made illustrious by few 
greater names than those of Webster and Clay, and 
their steadfast endeavor to keep the government to clear 
lines of thoughtful policy it must ever be the pleasure 
of the historian to praise; but the party had too often 
gone into presidential campaigns depending upon some 
mere popular cry, some passing enthusiasm of the peo- 
ple for a particular hero. The only Whig Presidents 
had been successful soldiers, General Harrison and 
General Taylor, both of whom died in office, to be suc- 
ceeded, the one by Mr. Tyler who was not a Whig but 
a Democrat, the other by Mr. Fillmore who followed 
the leaders of his party, and counted for little in the 
formation of politics. Mr. Clay himself had shifted 
very uneasily from Yes to No in 1844 on the question 
of the annexation of Texas, when pitted against Mr. 
Polk, and the confident programme of the Democrats 
for ‘‘the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation 


COLLEGE AND STATE 15 


of Texas,” to the great loss of personal prestige; and 
the “Liberty Party’ which then drew discontented 
Whigs from Mr. Clay’s following had found successors 
in parties which showed more and more powerful as the 
number of voters grew who found the Whigs without 
courage or purpose on the chief issue of the day. 

In was easy, with the machinery of nominating con- 
ventions open to everybody’s use, as it had been since 
General Jackson’s day, to bring new parties into the 
field from season to season, though it was by no means 
so easy to give them strength and coherency amidst 
shifting opinion; and independent nominations had 
more than once diverted votes from the ruling party at 
critical moments. ‘There was little doubt but that the 
sixty thousand votes cast for the candidate of the Lib- 
erty Party in 1844 had been chiefly drawn from the 
Whig ranks, and had cost Mr. Clay the election. In 
1848 a ‘“‘Free-Soil”’ convention had nominated Mr. Van 
Buren, and a strong faction of Democrats in New 
York, displeased with the attitude of their party on the 
question of slavery in the Mexican cession, had followed 
their example, with the result that the Whig candidate 
won and the Democrat lost. The opposition to the ex- 
tension of slavery was strongest among men of Whig 
connections, but it showed itself also in the Democratic 
ranks and rendered party calculations most uncertain. 
Mr. Wilmot, whose proviso against slavery had made 
such difficulty in the debates on the Mexican cession, was 
a Democrat, not a Whig, not a professed partisan of 
the new men of Mr. Seward’s creed, who were slowly 
making their way into Congress. The Free-Soil men 
held another convention in 1852, when the Whigs went 
to pieces, and spoke to the country with a ringing plat- 
form of “‘no slave states, no more slave territories, no 
nationalized slavery, no national legislation for the ex- 
tradition of slaves,’ and again made their own nomina- 
tion for the presidency; but opinion was shifting again; 
the Compromise of 1850 had disposed voters for the 


16 COLLEGE AND IS FATE 


time to let critical matters alone; restless men were 
turning in other directions, and the Free-Soilers reaped 
no apparent advantage from the break-up of parties. 
It was not until Mr. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
and the pitiful spectacle of the struggle in Kansas which 
followed, had drawn men sharply from thought to ac- 
tion, that the Republican party emerged and showed 
the strength of a party that would last and win its way 
to power; and even then it felt obliged to compound 
a singular Free-Soil-Anti-Nebraska-Whig creed and 
nominate a Democrat for the presidency. 

Meantime there had been witnessed an extraordinary 
diversion in the field of parties. The Know-Nothing 
party had sprung into sudden importance, with a pro- 
gramme which had nothing to say of slavery one way 
or the other, but concentrated attention upon the for- 
midable tide of foreigners pouring into the country, be- 
cause of the famine in Ireland and the political up- 
heavals of 1848 in Europe, and urged upon the country 
the necessity of safeguarding its institutions against 
alien influences, of confining its gifts of political office 
to native Americans, and of regulating very circum- 
spectly the bestowal of the suffrage. Voters turned to 
this new party as if glad to find some new current for 
their thoughts, some new interest touched at least with 
a common patriotism. In the autumn of 1854 the 
Know-Nothings elected their candidates for the gover- 
norship in Massachusetts and Delaware, and sent nearly 
a hundred members to the House of Representatives. 
In the autumn of 1855 they carried New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
Kentucky, and California, and fell but little short of 
winning majorities in six of the Southern States. The 
House of Representatives which met in December, 
1855, was an extraordinary medley of Democrats, Anti- 
Nebraska men, Free-Soilers, southern pro-slavery 
Whigs, northern anti-slavery Whigs, Know-Nothings 
who favored the extension of slavery, and Know-Noth- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 17 


ings who opposed it. Nothing was certain of that as- 
sembly except that the Democrats had lost their ma- 
jority init. Even in 1856, when the elements of oppo- 
sition began to draw together into the Republican party, 
there were still in the field a remnant of Whigs and a 
remnant of Know-Nothings. ‘The four years of another 
administration were needed for the final formation 
of parties as they were to enter the conclusive contest 
of 1860. And so the year 1857 was a year between- 
times, when the country had not yet consciously drawn 
away from its past, had not yet consciously entered its 
revolutionary future. 

It was indeed a revolution which ensued. Changes 
more complete, more pervasive and radical than those 
which were wrought by the war between the States, 
by the “Reconstruction” of the Southern States, and by 
all that has followed of social and economic trans- 
formation, could hardly be imagined. ‘The nation of 
1907 is hardly recognizable, socially, politically, or eco- 
nomically, as the nation of 1857 or of 1860. ‘The gen- 
eration that wrought that extraordinary revolution left 
the stage but yesterday. We have all known and famil- 
iarly conversed with men who belonged to it and who 
performed its tremendous tasks. Some of the soldiers 
who officered the armies of that war of transforma- 
tion are still among us. But we do not think their 
thoughts; it requires an effort of the imagination to 
carry our minds back to the things which are for them 
the most vital facts and recollections of their lives. 
Even they are now unconsciously dominated by influ- 
ences which have lost all flavor of the days they remem- 
ber. They have come -to think our thoughts and see 
the world as we see it: a nation not made apparently 
by the forces they handle, but by forces new and of a 
modern world,—by vast economic alterations and un- 
foreseen growths of enterprise and endeavor; by the 
opening up of the Orient and the new stir of affairs 
upon the Pacific; by an unlooked-for war which has 


18 COLLEGE AND STATE 


drawn us out of our one-time domestic self-absorption 
into the doubtful and perilous field of international poll- 
tics; by new influences of opinion and new problems of 
political organization and of legal regulation. Nothing 
remains of that older day but the irreparable mischief 
wrought by the reconstruction of the Southern States. 
That folly has left upon us the burden of a race prob- 
lem well-nigh insoluble, which even the alchemy of these 
extraordinary fifty years has not transmuted into stuff 
of calculable human purpose. That is of the old world; 
all else is of the new. We see what has gone by only 
across a gulf of unfamiliar things. 


And so we stand in the year 1907 as if in a new age, 
and look not back but forward. It would perhaps be 
too fanciful to pretend to find in 1907 a close parallel 
of circumstances with the far year 1857, which lies so 
long a half century away from us; but there is this par- 
ticular feature of resemblance, that this, like that, is 
a brief season between times, when forces are gathering 
which we have not clearly analyzed, and tasks are to 
be performed for which we have not formed definite 
party combinations. Parties are in partial solution 
now as then, and for the same reason. The issue of the 
day is clearly enough defined in our thoughts, as was 
the issue with regard to the extension of slavery in the 
thought of all observant men in 1857; but parties have 
not yet squarely aligned themselves along what must 
of course be the line of cleavage. It is manifest that 
we must adjust our legal and political principles to a 
new set of conditions which involve the whole moral 
and economic makeup of our national life; but party 
platforms are not yet clearly differentiated, party pro- 
grammes are not yet explicit for the voter’s choice. Let 
us hope that we are on the eve of a campaign of sharp 
definition. 

There are many things to define, and yet there is only 
one thing. It is easy enough to point out the perplexing 


COLLEGE AND STATE 19 


complexity of our present field of choice in every matter 
that calls for action. Our new business organization 
is so different from our old, to which we had adjusted 
our morals and our economic analyses, that we find 
ourselves confused when we try to think out its prob- 
lems. Everything is upon a gigantic scale. The in- 
dividual is lost in the organization. No man any 
longer, it would seem, understands the whole of any 
modern business. Every part of every undertaking 
demands special knowledge and expert skill. Individ- 
uals play their parts in subordination to the organiza- 
tions which they serve, and we are made to doubt their 
moral responsibility beyond the limits of the mere tasks 
they are set to do; and yet the morality of the machine 
itself we do not know how to formulate. If we cannot 
formulate its morals, we cannot formulate the legal 
principles upon which we are to deal with it; for law 
is only so much of the moral understandings of society, 
so much of its rules of right and of convenience as it 
has been possible to reduce to principles plainly suitable 
for general application without too much doubt or re- 
finement. Our thinkers, whether in the field of morals 
or in the field of economics, have before them nothing 
less than the task of translating law and morals into 
the terms of modern business; and inasmuch as morals 
cannot be corporate, but must be individual, however 
ingeniously the individual may seek covert, that task in 
simple terms comes to this: to find the individual amidst 
modern circumstances and bring him face to face once 
more with a clearly defined personal responsibility. 
And that is the one thing which the politician, as well 
as the moralist and the economist, must make up his 
mind about. It is easy to state the matter in a way that 
makes it sound very subtle, very philosophical, a thing 
for the casuist, not for the man of affairs. But it is a 
plain question for practical men after all. And practical 
men are very busy just now, in confused and haphazard 
ways, perhaps, but very energetically, nevertheless, in 


20 COLLEGE AND STATE 


settling it for better or for worse. We state our prob- 
lem for statesmen by saying that it is the problem 
of the control of corporations. Corporations are, of 
course, only combinations of individuals, but the individ- 
uals combined in them have a power in their respective 
fields, an opportunity of enterprise, which is beyond all 
precedent in private undertakings and which gives them 
a sort of public character, if only by reason of their size 
and scope and the enormous resources they command; 
some of them seeming, if it were possible, rivals of the 
government itself in their control over individuals and 
affairs. Lawyers have always spoken of corporations 
as artificial persons, but these modern corporations 
seem in the popular imagination and in the minds of 
lawmakers to be actual persons, the colossal personal- 
ities of modern industrial society. 

One school of politicians amongst us, one school of 
lawyers and of lawmakers, accepts the prodigy as literal 
fact, and tries to deal with it as with a person. It isa 
new doctrine of ‘“‘squatter sovereignty.’ Mr. Douglas 
maintained that those who formed the great corporate 
bodies of the West which we have called territories 
could not by any rightful legal principle be dealt with as 
citizens, but must be suffered corporately to form their 
lives and practices as they pleased, and then dealt with 
as states; his modern counterparts tell us that corpora- 
tions must contrive their ways of business at their pleas- 
ure and peril, and that law cannot deal with them as 
a body of citizens but only as an organized power to be 
regulated in its entirety and handled as a corporate 
member of our new national society of corporations. 
Corporations, we are told, have grown bigger than 
States, and must take a sort of precedence of them in 
the new organism of our law, being made participants 
in a federal system of legal regulation which States can- 
not negative or tamper with. The only way in which 
to meet such amazing—I had almost said amusing— 
ideas, is to meet them as the older doctrine of squatter 


COLLEGE AND STATE 21 


sovereignty was met: by a flat denial that there is or can 
be any such thing as corporate morality or a corporate 
privilege and standing which is lifted out of the realm 
of ordinary citizenship and individual responsibility. 
The whole theory is compounded of confused thinking 
and impossible principles of law; and the political party 
that explicitly rejects it and substitutes for it plain sense 
and feasible law will bring health and exhilaration of 
comprehensible policy into affairs again. 

The present apparent approach of the two great par- 
ties of the nation to one another, their apparent agree- 
ment upon the chief questions now of significance, is 
not real, it is only apparent. At any rate it is plain that 
if it is in fact taking place, it does not truly represent 
the two great bodies of opinion that exist in the nation. 
There is a great and apparently growing body of opin- 
ion in the country which approves of a radical change 
in the character of our institutions and the objects of 
our law, which wishes to see government, and the federal 
government at that, regulate business. Some men who 
entertain this wish perceive that it is socialistic, some do 
not. But of course it is socialistic. Government cannot 
properly or intelligently regulate business without fully 
comprehending it in its details as well as in its larger 
aspects; it cannot comprehend it except through the in- 
strumentality of expert commissions; it cannot use ex- 
pert commissions long for purposes of regulation with- 
out itself by degrees undertaking actually to order and 
conduct what it began by regulating. We are at present 
on the high road to government ownership of many 
sorts, or to some other method of control which will 
in practice be as complete as actual ownership. 

On the other hand, there is a great body of opinion, 
slow to express itself, sorely perplexed in the presence 
of modern business conditions, but very powerful and 
upon the eve of an uprising, which prefers the older 
and simpler methods of the law, prefers courts to com- 
missions, and believes them, if properly used and 


22 COLLEGE AND STATE 


adapted, better, more efficacious, in the end more puri- 
fying, than the new instrumentalities now being so un- 
thinkingly elaborated. ‘The country is still full of men 
who retain a deep enthusiasm for the old ideals of in- 
dividual liberty, sobered and kept within bounds by the 
equally old definitions of personal responsibility, the 
ancient safeguards against license; and these men are 
right in believing that those older principles can be 
so used as to control modern business and keep govern- 
ment outside the pale of industrial enterprise. The law 
can deal with transactions instead of with methods of 
business, and with individuals instead of with corpora- 
tions. It can reverse the process which creates corpora- 
tions, and instead of compounding individuals, oblige 
corporations to analyze their organization and name 
the individuals responsible for each class of their 
transactions. The law, both civil and criminal, can 
clearly enough characterize transactions, can clearly 
enough determine what their consequences shall be to 
the individuals who engage in them in a responsible 
capacity. New definitions in that field are not beyond 
the knowledge of modern lawyers or the skill of modern 
lawmakers, if they will accept the advice of disinter- 
ested lawyers. We shall never moralize society by fin- 
ing or even dissolving corporations; we shall only incon- 
venience it. We shall moralize it only when we make 
up our minds as to what transactions are reprehensible, | 
and bring those transactions home to individuals with 
the full penalties of the law. ‘That is the other, the 
greater body of opinion; one or other of the great par- 
ties of the nation must sooner or later stand with it, 
while the other stands with those who burden govern- 
ment with the regulation of business by direct over- 
sight. 

Such a season between times as this in which we live 
demands nothing so imperatively as clear thinking and 
definite conviction: thinking clear both in its objects 
and in its details; conviction which can be satisfied only 


COLLEGE AND STATE 23 


by action. The Atlantic Monthly has enjoyed the great 
distinction of supplying the writing of conviction 
throughout the deep troubles and perplexities of a half- 
century of contest and reconstruction; it enters now 
upon a second half-century which is no less in need of 
similar tonic. Our very political ideals are now to be 
decided. We are to keep or lose our place of distinc- 
tion among the nations, by keeping or losing our faith 
in the practicability of individual liberty. 


LAW OR PERSONAL POWER. 


ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC 
CLUB, NEW YORK, APRIL 13, 1908. FROM ORIGINAL 
TYPEWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT WITH MR. WILSON’S 
CORRECTIONS, IN THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON 
UNIVERSITY. 


WE hear a great deal of candidates and programmes, 
but very little of principles. Parties seem almost to 
have gone to pieces and to have become indistinguish- 
able, except in so far as men by habit call themselves 
by this party name or by that. Both parties have with 
like eagerness turned to the regulation of the business 
of the country, the restraint and regulation of the great 
business corporations, and vie with each other in the 
radical measures which they propose; but the measures 
of the one might be the measures of the other. They 
are virtually indistinguishable in principle, and the prin- 
ciple they have in common is a bad principle which, if 
carried far enough in its application, would inevitably 
change the whole character of our government. It is 
time we stopped, for a little, speaking of candidacies 
and undertook to test measures by principles. 

The greater part of the business of the country has 
come into the hands of great corporations and trusts, 
and its new aspects unquestionably require adjustments 
and re-formulations of the law, which the courts have not 
had the power or the courage to make and which must 
therefore be made by legislation. The mere scale of 
business operations, moreover, has vastly increased. 
Comparatively small groups of men in control of great 
corporations wield a power and control over the wealth 
and the business operations of the country which makes 

24, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 25 


them seem rivals of the government itself. Law must 
be strengthened and adapted to keep them in curb and 
to make them subservient to the general welfare. No 
one now advocates the old Jaissez faire; no one questions 
the necessity for a firm and comprehensive regulation 
of business operations in the interest of fair dealing, of 
a responsible exercise of power. We are all advocates 
of a firm and effective regulation, but those of us who 
are Democrats challenge the prevailing principles of 
regulation, the principles which the Republican party 
has introduced and carried to such radical lengths and 
which some Democrats, confused by the clamour of the 
hour, have too thoughtlessly and hastily espoused. 

We have in fact turned from legal regulation to execu- 
tive regulation. We have turned from law to personal 
power. It is that choice which as Democrats we chal- 
lenge, and challenge with confidence, as opposed to every 
ancient principle of liberty and of just government. 
Have we given up law? Must we fall back on discre- 
tionary executive power? The government of the 
United States was established to get rid of arbitrary, 
that is, discretionary executive power. If we return 
to it, we abandon the very principles of our foundation, 
give up the English and American experiment and turn 
back to discredited models of government. 

A mere casual examination of recent legislation will 
show that these statements are not based upon fancy or 
upon exaggeration, but upon the necessary character of 
the things we have been trying to do. Law which can- 
not define and discriminate the transactions which it is 
the purpose of the legislature to forbid is not ready to 
become law at all, and yet it is just that that our recent 
statutes enacted by way of regulating some of the most 
important enterprises of the country have failed to do. 
They have run in vague terms, lumping things permis- 
sible with things impermissible, interfering with busi- 
ness without analyzing it or carefully discriminating its 
good and bad features. And then when the results were 


26 COLLEGE AND STATE 


unsatisfactory they have sought to lodge the power to 
discriminate, to permit and forbid, in the hands of com: 
missions with very extensive discretionary powers, ad- 
ministrative in character, not judicial; for no process is 
judicial which does not rest upon definition, upon de- 
tailed and explicit provisions of known law. ‘The Sher- 
man Act was as clumsy as it has been ineffectual, and 
the remedy for it has been to lodge the power to dis- 
criminate between what it should have forbidden and 
what it should have permitted in the hands of bodies of 
commissions appointed by the President. 

The latest proposals are typical of all the rest. All 
combinations or agreements in restraint of trade had 
been forbidden by statute. But some agreements in 
restraint of trade, some sorts of pooling of rates by 
the railroads for instance, do not in fact operate to the 
detriment of the public or of trade itself, but are bene- 
ficial rather and to be desired in the interest alike of 
efficiency and economy. ‘The lawmakers, upon that dis- 
covery, are not invited by the reformers to attempt def- 
inition of law which will discriminate between those 
agreements in restraint of trade which are innocent of 
monopolistic intent or effect and desirable in the interest 
of the community itself, from those which the vague 
original law was intended to prevent. They are urged, 
on the contrary, to put the whole matter in the hands 
of an executive officer. It is proposed to invite all 
corporations which wish to keep within the limits of the 
law to register with him and to submit all their contracts 
and arrangements to him for his sanction or disapproval, 
to let him make law by executive order. 

The principle underlying the laws which have here 
and there set up powerful public service commissions is 
the same. ‘These commissions are authorized not to 
administer precise rules of law made clear in the defin- 
itions of statutes, but to order this, that, or the other 
alteration, addition or adjustment in the actual adminis- 
tration of the business of the corporations which they 


COLLEGE AND STATE 27 


are set to supervise. It is true that these corporations 
are in a sense public servants: street railway companies, 
gas lighting companies, and the like. They use the pub- 
lic highways and enjoy public franchises of one kind or 
another and are engaged in kinds of business which can 
hardly be called private in character, but they are owned 
by private capital and operated for private profit. And 
yet their business is regulated, even in its chief adminis- 
trative details, by public officers whose practical judg- 
ment is the standard of regulation, who are administer- 
ing not rules of law but their own discretionary opin- 
ions. The law attempts no definitions in respect of these 
undertakings: it puts them in the hands of public officers; 
and yet undertakes no responsibility for their success 
or bankruptcy. 

If this is necessary, government by law has broken 
down, and personal government has been substituted. 
I for one do not believe that it is necessary. Neither do 
I believe that the American people have consciously 
made any such choice. ‘They have been hastened by 
reformers who acted upon no principle whatever into 
measures the real character and consequence of which 
were not explained to them. When those measures are 
understood, the people of this country will turn from 
them and substitute law once more for personal power. 

To all thoughtful persons, scrupulous of the ancient 
principles of our law, it is evident where this demoral- 
ization crept in. It is plain why the federal govern- 
ment has become the patron of the people instead of the 
arbiter of just and definite law. Our later tariff legis- 
lation has not been based upon the general welfare, 
but upon the patronage of special interests already 
strong, already very influential in politics. No one can 
examine the confused and illogical schedules of the 
present tariff without perceiving that it is really a mass 
of special favors piled together in a bill which was not 
seeking a symmetrical development of the industries 
of the country, such as Hamilton urged in his great 


28 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Report on Manufactures upon which all tariff laws pro- 
fess to be founded, but only to please every interest 
whose hostility was to be feared in the elections. A 
system of special favors is in its nature paternal. Its 
idea is not law but patronage, and, having created arti- 
ficial conditions and produced thereby interests which in 
their time grew so large as to threaten to dominate the 
government itself by the very processes which produced 
the tariff, it is plain logic that this same patronizing 
government must play a further paternal role of special 
regulation, not by careful scientific definitions of law but 
by detailed variations of administrative process. 

The opportunity of the Democratic party is the same 
all along the line: to return to government by law; to 
insist upon a tariff reconsidered in all its definitions, ad- 
justed to the actual conditions of trade and manufacture, 
viewed, not interest by interest, but upon the proud 
basis of the country’s needs and economies; to insist 
upon a currency, not based upon the sale of this, that 
or the other body or class of securities, but upon the 
actual assets and soundness of the banks of issue, re- 
dundancy checked by taxation, hazard offset by inspec- 
tion for the enforcement of definite and uniform rules; 
to insist upon laws, whether of combination or of con- 
tract, of offensive or of defensive action, which shall be 
the same for the capitalist and for the laborer; to insist 
upon the precise fixing of responsibility on individuals; 
to insist, in brief, everywhere upon definition, uniform, 
exact, enforceable. If there must be commissions, let 
them be, not executive instrumentalities having indef- 
inite powers capable of domineering as well as regulat- 
ing, but tribunals of easy and uniform process acting 
under precise terms of power in the enforcement of 
precise terms of regulation. 

It is perfectly possible to pick out transactions one 
by one to which definitions and regulations of law can be 
applied. If it is not, then law is impossible. The proc- 
ess is indeed slow; it is a process of investigation and 


COLLEGE AND STATE 29 


of experience of which ardent reformers are infinitely 
impatient; a process difficult to institute in a time of 
excitement and impatience for results like the present; 
but it is the only process of sound law-making. More- 
over, it is perfectly possible to pick out responsible indi- 
viduals and visit upon them the punishments of the law 
instead of checking business in order to eliminate unde- 
sirable practices. Sound government must ever be based 
upon definite law and individual responsibility. Cor- 
porate responsibility lacks vitality, corrects nobody. 
Corporations are creatures of the law; the law may 
exact of them any publicity of process it pleases, any 
analysis of their functions, any disclosure of their organ- 
ization. 

If juries have failed to convict indicted officials when 
the officers of the law have tried by indictment to correct 
corporate abuses, it has been because they were by no 
means sure that the persons indicted were really the 
responsible persons. Our lawmakers have made too 
little analysis of the things they wished to correct. Our 
law has not carefully enough discriminated real from 
nominal control, the masters from the servants. Many 
of the practices of our corporations which are most 
demoralizing, most against the public interest, most cor- 
rupt and most dangerous, were not originated by the 
oficial administrators of the corporation, the men ac- 
tually in charge of its daily transactions, but by manipu- 
lators who owned or controlled the majority of their 
stock, who could change the officers of the corporation 
as they pleased, who wished to create this, that or the 
other impression on the stock market and who wished 
to get certain effects wrought on the balance sheet of 
the corporation reports. ‘These were the real masters, 
with these rested the real responsibility. Has our law 
made an intelligent effort to find these men in its defin- 
itions of responsibility or in its imposition of penalties? 
It has known only fines, which fall upon innocent stock- 


30 COLLEGE AND STATE 


holders and guilty alike, and has left the real offenders 
unmolested in their practices. 

The people of this country are not jealous of fortunes 
however great which have been built up by the honest 
development of great enterprises, which have been 
actually earned by business energy and sagacity; they 
are jealous only of speculative wealth, of the wealth 
which has been piled up by no effort at all but only by 
shrewd wits playing on the credulity of others, taking 
advantage of the weakness of others, trading in the 
necessities of others. This is ‘predatory wealth’ and 
is found in stock markets, not in the administrative 
offices of great corporations where real business is con- 
ducted, real commodities made or exchanged. And what 
the lawmaker has failed to perceive in recent years is 
that the charges made by corporations for their manu- 
factured goods or for their services have been deter- 
mined oftentimes not by the desire of the corporation 
to charge more than what it sells is worth, but by the 
necessity it is under to earn dividends on watered stock 
or make good the terms of the sale of its plant at 
extravagant figures when it was made a part of some 
greater combination. Processes of over-capitalization 
are processes of fraud. ‘The law should analyze and 
frustrate them. If it cannot, our situation will not be 
improved by putting the matter in the hands of some 
executive inquisitor. Our battle cry must be, ‘Back to 
the reign of law.’’ The discretion of executive officers, 
whether you call them commissioners or not, is a mere 
quicksand upon which no nation can stand. 

Only principles are constructive. No miscellaneous 
programme of measures formed by no principle, uni- 
fied by no controlling purpose, can give life to a great 
national party and lift it above faction or futility. The 
principle to which the voters of this country should be 
called back now is the great constructive principle of 
the reign of law. The familiar Jeffersonian maxim 
that that government is the best which governs least, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 31 


translated into the terms of modern experience, means 
that that government is best whose processes least ex- 
pose the individual to arbitrary interference and the 
choices of governors, which makes him most secure of 
the regular and impartial administration of fixed and 
uniform rules, which makes no distinction between class 
and class, aims always at eliminating undesirable trans- 
actions rather than at setting up official interference 
with the management of business, and looks to indi- 
viduals, not to the general public (such as investors) to 
bear the penalties of infraction. Law, and the govern- 
ment as umpire; not discretionary power, and the gov- 
ernment as master, should be the programme of every 
man who loves liberty and the established character of 
the Republic. , 





THE STATES AND THE FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT 


FROM THE ‘‘NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,” MAY, 1908, 
VOL. CLXXXVII, PP. 684-701. 


fl Pte question of the relation of the States to the 
Federal Government is the cardinal question of our 
constitutional system. At every turn of our national 
development we have been brought face to face with it, 
and no definition either of statesmen or of judges has 
ever quieted or decided it. It cannot, indeed, be settled 
by the opinion of any one generation, because it is a 
question of growth, and every successive stage of our 
political and economic development gives it a new as- 
pect, makes it a new question. ‘The general lines of 
definition which were to run between the powers granted 
to Congress and the powers reserved to the States the 
makers of the Constitution were able to draw with their 
characteristic foresight and lucidity; but the subject- 
matter of that definition is constantly changing, for it is 
the life of the nation itself. Our activities change alike 
their scope and their character with every generation. 
The old measures of the Constitution are every day 
to be filled with new grain as the varying crop of cir- 
cumstances comes to maturity. It is clear enough that 
the general commercial, financial, economic interests of 
the country were meant to be brought under the regula- 
tion of the Federal Government, which should act for 
all; and it is equally clear that what are the general 
commercial, financial, economic interests of the country 
is a question of fact, to be determined by circumstances 
which change under our very eyes, and that, case by 
case, we are inevitably drawn on to include under the 
32 


COLLEGE AND STATE 33 


established definitions of the law matters new and 
unforeseen which seem in their magnitude to give to the 
powers of Congress a sweep and vigor certainly never 
conceived possible by earlier generations of statesmen, 
sometimes almost revolutionary even in our own eyes. 
The subject-matter of this troublesome definition is the 
living body of affairs. 

It is difficult to discuss so critical and fundamental 
a question calmly and without party heat or bias when 
it has come once more, as it has now, to an acute stage. 
Just because it lies at the heart of our constitutional sys- 
tem, to decide it wrongly is to alter the whole structure 
and operation of our government, for good or for evil, 
and one would wish never to see the passion of party 
touch it to distort it. A sobering sense of responsibility 
should fall upon every one who handles it. No man 
should argue it this way or that for party advantage. 
Desire to bring the impartial truth to light must in such 
a case be the first dictate alike of true statesmanship 
and of true patriotism. Every man should seek to 
think of it and to speak of it in the true spirit of the 
founders of the government. 

Almost every great internal crisis in our affairs has 
turned upon the question of State and Federal rights. 
To take but two instances, it was the central subject- 
matter of the great controversy over tariff legislation 
which led to attempted Nullification and of the still 
greater controversy over the extension of slavery which 
led to the war between the States; and these two con- 
troversies did more than any others in our history to 
determine the scope and character of the Federal gov- 
ernment. | 

The principle of the division of powers between State 
and Federal Governments is a very simple one when 
stated in its most general terms. It is that the Legisla- 
tures of the States shall have control of all the general 
subject-matter of law, of private rights of every kind, 
of local interests and of everything that directly con- 


34 COLLEGE AND STATE 


cerns their people as communities,—free choice with 
regard to all matters of local regulation and develop- 
ment, and that Congress shall have control only of such 
matters as concern the peace and the commerce of the 
country as a whole. ‘The opponents of the tariff of 
1824 objected to the tariff system which Congress was 
so rapidly building up that it went much beyond the 
simple and legitimate object of providing the Federal 
Government with revenues in such a way as to stimulate 
without too much disturbing the natural development 
of the country and was unmistakably intended to guide 
and determine the whole trend of the nation’s economic 
evolution, preferring the industries of one section of 
the country to those of another in its bestowal of pro- 
tection and encouragement and so depriving the States 
as self-governing communities of all free economic 
choice in the development of their resources. Congress 
persisted in its course; Nullification failed as even an 
effectual protest against the power of a government of 
which General Jackson was the head,—never so sure he 
was right as when he was opposed; and a critical matter, 
of lasting importance, was decided. ‘The Federal Gov- 
ernment was conceded the power to determine the eco- 
nomic opportunities of the States. It was suffered to 
become a general providence, to which each part of the 
country must look for its chance to make lucrative use 
of its material resources. 

The slavery question, though it cut deep into the 
social structure of a great section of the country and 
contained such heat as could not, when once given vent, 
be restrained from breaking into flame, as the tariff 
controversy had been, was, after all, a no more funda- 
mental question, in its first essential form, than the 
question of the tariff. Could Congress exclude slavery 
from the Territories of the United States and from 
newly formed States? If it could, manifestly the slavery 
system, once restricted in territory, would in time die 
of the strictures which bound it. Mr. Lincoln was 


COLLEGE AND STATE 35 


quite right when he said that no nation could exist half 
slave and half free. But that was only by consequence. 
The immediate question was the power of Congress to 
determine the internal social and economic structure 
of society in the several States thereafter to be formed. 
It is not to my present purpose to trace the circumstances 
and influences which brought on the Civil War. The 
abolition of slavery by war, though natural, was not 
the necessary legal consequence of the contention that 
Congress possessed the power which it had exercised 
in the constitution of the Northwest ‘Territory and in 
the enactment of the Missouri Compromise. What hap- 
pened before the momentous struggle was over camé 
about by the mere logic of human nature, by stress of 
human passion. What concerns me in the present dis- 
cussion is that here, again, as in the building up of a 
fostering tariff, what turned out to be a far-reaching 
change in the very conception of Federal power had as 
its central point of controversy the question of the 
powers of the States as against the powers of the Goy- 
ernment at Washington. ‘The whole spirit and action 
of the Government were deeply altered in carrying that 
question one stage further toward a settlement. 

And I am particularly interested to point out that 
here again, as in the tariff question, it was an inevitable 
controversy, springing, not out of theory, not out of 
the uneasy ambition of statesmen, but out of mere 
growth and imperious circumstance. Population was 
spreading over the great western areas of the country; 
new communities were forming, upon which lawyers 
could lay no binding prescription as to the life they 
should lead; new Territories were constantly to be or- 
ganized, new States constantly to be admitted to the 
Union. A choice which every day assumed new forms 
was thrust upon Congress. Events gave it its variety, 
and Congress could not avoid the influences of opinion, 
which altered as circumstances changed, as it became 
more and more clear what the nation was to be. It was 


36 COLLEGE AND STATE 


of the very stuff of daily business, forced upon Congress 
by the opinion of the country, to answer the question, 
What shall these new communities be allowed to do with 
themselves, what shall they be suffered to make of the 
nation? May Congress determine, or is it estopped by 
the reserved powers of the States? The choices of 
growth cannot be postponed, and they seem always to 
turn upon some new doubt as to where the powers of 
the States leave off and the powers of the Federal Goy- 
ernment begin. 

And now the question has come upon us anew. It 
is no longer sectional, but it is all the more subtle and 
intricate, all the less obvious and tangible in its elements, 
on that account. It involves, first or last, the whole 
economic movement of the age and necessitates an 
analysis which has not yet been even seriously attempted. 
- Which parts of the many-sided processes of the nation’s 
economic development shall be left to the regulation of 
the States, which parts shall be given over to the regula- 
tion of the Federal Government? I do not propound 
this as a mere question of choice, a mere question of 
statesmanship, but also as a question, a very funda- 
mental question, of constitutional law. What, reading 
our Constitution in its true spirit, neither sticking in its 
letter nor yet forcing it arbitrarily to mean what we 
wish it to mean, shall be the answer of our generation 
to the old question of the distribution of powers be- 
tween Congress and the States? For us, as for pre- 
vious generations, it is a deeply critical question. ‘The 
very stuff of all our political principles, of all our 
political experience, is involved in it. In this all too 
indistinctly marked field of right choice our statesman- 
ship shall achieve new triumphs or come to eventual 
shipwreck. 

The old theory of the sovereignty of the States, which 
used so to engage our passions, has lost its vitality. The 
war between the States established at least this princi- 
ple, that the Federal Government is, through its courts, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 37 


the final judge of its own powers. Since that stern ar- 
bitrament it would be idle, in any practical argument, to 
ask by what law of abstract principle the Federal Gov- 
ernment is bound and restrained. Its power is ‘‘to 
regulate commerce between the States,” and the attempts 
now made during every session of Congress to carry the 
implications of that power beyond the utmost boun- 
daries of reasonable and honest inference show that the 
only limits likely to be observed by politicians are those 
set by the good sense and conservative temper of the 
country. 

The proposed Federal legislation with regard to the 
regulation of child labor affords a striking example. 
If the power to regulate commerce between the States 
can be stretched to include the regulation of labor in 
mills and factories, it can be made to embrace every 
particular of the industrial organization and action of 
the country. The only limitation Congress would ob- 
serve, should the Supreme Court assent to such obvi- 
ously absurd extravagances of interpretation, would be 
the limitations of opinion and of circumstance. 

It is important, therefore, to look at the facts and 
to understand the real character of the political and 
economic materials of our own day with a clear and 
statesmanlike vision, as the makers of the Constitution 
understood the conditions they dealt with. If the jeal- 
ousies of the colonies and of the little States which 
sprang out of them had not obliged the makers of the 
Constitution to leave the greater part of legal regula- 
tion in the hands of the States it would have been wise, 
it would even have been necessary, to invent such a di- 
vision of powers as was actually agreed upon. It is . 
not, at bottom, a question of sovereignty or of any other 
political abstraction; it is a question of vitality. Uni- 
form regulation of the economic conditions of a vast 
territory and a various people like the United States — 
would be mischievous, if not impossible. The statesman- 
ship which really attempts it is premature and unwise. 


38 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Undoubtedly the recent economic development of the 
country, particularly the development of the last two 
decades, has obliterated many boundaries, made many 
interests national and common which until our own 
day were separate and distinct; but the lines of these 
great changes we have not yet clearly traced or studi- 
ously enough considered. ‘To distinguish them and pro- 
vide for them is the task which is to test the statesman- 
ship of our generation; and it is already plain that, great 
as they are, these new combinations of interest have not 
yet gone so far as to make the States mere units of 
local government. Not our legal conscience merely, 
but our practical interests as well, call upon us to dis- 
criminate and be careful, with the care of men who 
handle the vital stuff of a great constitutional system. 

The United States are not a single, homogeneous com- 
munity. In spite of a certain superficial sameness which 
seems to impart to Americans a common type and point 
of view, they still contain communities at almost every 
stage of development, illustrating in their social and 
economic structure almost every modern variety of 
interest and prejudice, following occupations of every 
kind, in climates of every sort that the temperate zone 
affords. This variety of fact and condition, these sub- 
stantial economic and social contrasts, do not in all cases 
follow State lines. They are often contrasts between 
region and region rather than between State and State. 
But they are none the less real, and are in many instances 
permanent and ineradicable. 

From the first the United States have been socially 
and economically divided into regions rather than into 
States. The New England States have always been in 
most respects of a piece; the Southern States had always 
more interests in common than points of contrast; and 
the Middle States were so similarly compounded even 
in the day of the erection of the government that they 
might without material inconvenience have been treated 
as a single economic and political unit. These first mem- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 39 


bers of the Union did, indeed, have an intense historical 
individuality which made them easily distinguishable 
and rendered it impossible, had any one dreamed of it, 
to treat them as anything but what they were, actual 
communities, quick with a character and purpose of 
their own. Throughout the earlier process of our na- 
tional expansion States formed themselves, for the most 
part, upon geographical lines marked out by nature, 
within the limiting flood of great rivers or the lifted 
masses of great mountain chains; with here and there a 
parallel of latitude for frontier, but generally within 
plots of natural limit where those who had set up homes 
felt some natural and obvious tie of political union draw 
them together. In later years, when States were to be 
created upon the great plains which stretched their fer- 
tile breadths upon the broad mid-surfaces of the conti- 
nent, the lines chosen for boundaries were those which 
had been run by the theodolite of the public surveyor, 
and States began to be disposed upon the map like 
squares upon a great chess board, where the human 
pieces of the future game of politics might come to 
be moved very much at will, and no distinct economic, 
though many social, varieties were to be noted among 
neighbor commonwealths. 

But, while division by survey instead of by life and 
historical circumstance no doubt created some artificial 
political divisions with regard to which the old theories 
of separate political sovereignty seemed inapplicable 
enough, the contrasts between region and region were 
in no way affected, resemblances were rendered no more 
striking than the differences which remained. We have 
been familiar from the first with groups of States united 
in interest and character; we have been familiar from the 
first also with groups of States contrasted by obvious 
differences of occupation and of development. These 
differences are almost as marked now as they ever were, 
and the vital growth of the nation depends upon our 


40 COLLEGE AND STATE 


recognizing and providing for them. It will be checked 
and permanently embarrassed by ignoring them. 

We are too apt to think that our American political 
system is distinguished by its central structure, by its 
President and Congress and courts, which the Constitu- 
tion of the Union set up. As a matter of fact, it is 
distinguished by its local structure, by the extreme vital- 
ity of its parts. It would be an impossibility without 
its division of powers. From the first it has been a 
nation in the making. It has come to maturity by the 
stimulation of no central force or guidance, but by the 
abounding self-helping, self-suffiicing energy of its parts, 
which severally brought themselves into existence and 
added themselves to the Union, pleasing first of all them- 
selves in the framing of their laws and constitutions, not 
asking leave to exist, but existing first and asking leave 
afterwards, self-originated, self-constituted, self-confi- 
dent, self-sustaining, veritable communities, demanding 
only recognition. Communities develop, not by exter- 
nal, but by internal forces. Else they do not live at 
all. Our commonwealths have not come into existence 
by invitation, like plants in a tended garden; they have 
sprung up of themselves, irrepressible, a sturdy, spon- 
taneous product of the nature of men nurtured in a free 
air. 

It is this spontaneity and variety, this independent 
and irrepressible life of its communities, that has given 
our system its extraordinary elasticity, which has pre- 
served it from the paralysis which has sooner or later 
fallen upon every people who have looked to their cen- 
tral government to patronize and nurture them. It is 
this, also, which has made our political system so admir- 
able an instrumentality of vital constitutional under- 
standings. Throughout these lectures I have described 
constitutional government as that which is maintained 
upon the basis of an intimate understanding between 
those who conduct government and those who obey it. 
Nowhere has it been possible to maintain such under- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 41 


standings more intimately or with a nicer adjustment 
to every variety of circumstance than in the United 
States. ‘The distribution of the chief powers of govern- 
ment among the States is the localization and specializa- 
tion of constitutional understandings; and this elastic 
adaptation of constitutional processes to the various and 
changing conditions of a new country and a vast area 
has been the real cause of our political success. 

The division of powers between the States and the 
Federal Government effected by our Federal Constitu- 
tion was the normal and natural division for this pur- 
pose. Under it the States possess all the ordinary legal 
choices that shape a people’s life. Theirs is the whole 
of the ordinary field of law: the regulation of domestic 
relations and of the relations between employer and 
employee, the determination of property rights and of 
the validity and enforcement of contracts, the definition 
of crimes and their punishments, the definition of the 
many and subtle rights and obligations which lie out- 
side the fields of property and contract, the establish- 
ment of the laws of incorporation and of the rules gov- 
erning the conduct of every kind of business. The pre- 
sumption insisted upon by the Courts in every argument 
with regard to the Federal Government is that it has no 
power not explicitly granted it by the Federal Constitu- 
tion or resonably to be inferred as the natural or neces- 
sary accompaniment of the powers there conveyed to it; 
but the presumption with regard to the powers of the 
States they have always held to be of exactly the opposite 
kind. It is that the States of course possess every power 
that government has ever anywhere exercised, except 
only those powers which their own constitutions or the 
Constitution of the United States explicitly or by plain 
inference withhold. They are the ordinary govern- 
ments of the country; the Federal Government is its in- 
strument only for particular purposes. 

Congress is, indeed, the immediate government of 
the people. It does not govern the States, but acts 


42 COLLEGE AND STATE 


directly upon individuals, as directly as the governments 
of the States themselves. It does not stand at a distance 
and look on,—to be ready for an occasional interference’ 
—pbut is the immediate and familiar instrument of the 
people in everything that it undertakes, as if there were 
no States. The States do not stand between it and the 
people. But the field of its action is distinct, restricted, 
definite. 

We are not concerned in our present discussion with 
its powers as representative of the people in regulating 
the foreign affairs of the country. The discussion of the 
relation of the States to the Federal Government does 
not touch that field. About it there has never been 
doubt or debate. Neither is the power of the Federal 
Government to tax, or to regulate the military estab- 
lishments of the country, any longer in dispute, even 
though the Federal Government use its power to tax to 
accomplish many an indirect object of economic stimula- 
tion or control which touches the independent industrial 
choices of the States very nearly. The one source from 
which all debatable Federal powers of domestic regula- 
' tion now spring is the power to regulate commerce be- 
tween the States. 

The chief object of the Union and of the revision of 
the Articles of Confederation was undoubtedly commer- 
cial regulation. It was not political, but economic, war- 
fare between the States which threatened the existence 
of the new Union and made every prospect of national 
growth and independence doubtful—the warfare of sel- 
fish commercial regulation. It was intended, accord- 
ingly, that the chief, one might almost say the only, 
domestic power of Congress in respect of the daily life 
of the people should be the power to regulate com- 
merce. 

It seemed a power susceptible of very simple definition 
at the first. Only in our own day of extraordinary 
variation from the older and simpler types of industry 
has it assumed aspects both new and without limit of 


COLLEGE AND STATE 43 


variety. It is now no longer possible to frame any 
simple or comprehensive definition of ‘‘commerce.”’ 
Above all is it dificult to distinguish the ‘‘commerce’’ 
which is confined within the boundaries of a single 
State and subject to its domestic regulation from that 
which passes from State to State and lies within the 
jurisdiction of Congress. The actual interchange of 
goods, which, strictly speaking, is commerce, within 
the narrow and specific meaning of the term, is now so 
married to their production under our great modern 
industrial combinations, organization and community of 
interest have so obscured the differences between the 
several parts of business which once it was easy to dis- 
criminate, that the power to regulate commerce subtly 
extends its borders every year into new fields of enter- 
prise and prys into every matter of economic effort. 
Added to this doubt and difficulty of analysis which 
makes it a constant matter of debate what the powers of 
Congress are is the growing dissatisfaction with the part 
the States are playing in the economic life of the day. 
They either let the pressing problems of the time alone 
and attempt no regulation at all, however loudly opinion 
and circumstance itself may call for it, or they try every 
half-considered remedy, embark upon a thousand experi- 
ments, and bring utter confusion upon the industry of 
the country by contradicting and offsetting each other’s 
measures. No two States act alike. Manufacturers and 
carriers who serve commerce in many States find it im- 
possible to obey the laws of all, and the enforcement 
of the laws of the States in all their variety threatens 
the country with a new war of conflicting regulations 
as serious as that which made the Philadelphia conven- 
tion of 1787 necessary and gave us a new Federal Con- 
stitution. This conflict of laws in matters which vitally - 
interest the whole country and in which no State or re- 
gion can wisely stand apart to serve any particular 
interest of its own constitutes the greatest political 
danger of our day. It is more apt and powerful than 


44 COLLEGE AND STATE 


any other cause to bring upon us radical and ill-consid- 
ered changes. It confuses our thinking upon essential 
matters and makes us hasty reformers out of mere im- 
patience. We are in danger of acting before we clearly 
know what we want or comprehend the consequences of 
what we do,—in danger of altering the character of the 
government in order to escape a temporary inconven- 
lence. 

We are an industrial people. The development of 
the resources of the country, the command of the 
markets of the world, is for the time being more impor- 
tant in our eyes than any political theory or lawyer’s 
discrimination of functions. We are intensely ‘‘prac- 
tical,’’ moreover, and insist that every obstacle, whether 
of law or fact, be swept out of the way. It is not the 
right temper for constitutional understandings. Too 
“practical” a purpose may give us a government such as 
we never should have chosen had we made the choice 
more thoughtfully and deliberately. We cannot afford 
to belie our reputation for political sagacity and self- 
possession by any such hasty processes as those into 
which such a temper of mere impatience seems likely to 
hurry us. 

The remedy for ill-considered legislation by the 
States, the remedy alike for neglect and mistake on their 
part, lies, not outside the States, but within them. The 
mistakes which they themselves correct will sink deeper 
into the consciousness of their people than the mistakes 
which Congress may rush in to correct for them, thrust- 
ing upon them what they have not learned to desire. 
They will either themselves learn their mistakes, by 
such intimate and domestic processes as will penetrate 
very deep and abide with them in convincing force, or 
else they will prove that what might have been a mistake 
for other States or regions of the country was no mistake 
for them, and the country will have been saved its whole- 
some variety. In no case will their failure to correct 


COLLEGE AND STATE 45 


their own measures prove that the Federal Government 
might have forced wisdom upon them. 

There is, however, something else that comes to the 
surface, and that explains not a little of our present dis- 
satisfaction with State legislation upon matters of vital 
national importance. Their failure to correct their own: 
processes may prove that there is something radically 
wrong with the structure and operation of their govern- 
ments,—that they have ceased to be sensitive and efh- 
cient instruments for the creation and realization of opin- 
ion,—the real function of constitutional governments. 

It is better to learn the true political lesson than 
merely to improve business. ‘There is something in- 
volved which is deeper than the mere question of the 
distribution of legislative powers within our Federal 
system. We have come to the test of the intimate and 
detailed processes of self-government to which it was 
supposed that our principles and our experience had 
committed us. There are many evidences that we are 
losing confidence in our State Legislatures, and yet it is 
evident that it is through them that we attempt all the 
more intimate measures of self-government. ‘To lose 
faith in them is to lose faith in our very system of goy- 
ernment, and that is a very serious matter. It is this 
loss of confidence in our local legislatures that has led 
our people to give so much heed to the radical sugges- 
tions of change made by those who advocate the use of | 
the initiative and the referendum in our processes of 
legislation, the virtual abandonment of the representa- 
tive principle and the attempt to put into the hands of 
the voters themselves the power to initiate and negative 
laws,—in order to enable them to do for themselves 
what they have not been able to get satisfactorily done 
through the representatives they have hitherto chosen 
to act for them. 

Such doubts and such consequent proposals of reform 
should make us look deeper into this question than we 
have hitherto looked. It may turn out, upon examina- 


46 COLLEGE AND STATE 


tion, that what we are really dissatisfied with is not the 
present distribution of powers between the State and 
Federal authorities, but the character of our State gov- 
ernments. If they were really governments by the peo- 
ple we should not be dissatisfied with them. We are 
impatient of State Legislatures because they seem to us 
less representative of the thoughtful opinion of the 
country than Congress is. We know that our Legisla- 
tures do not think alike, but we are not sure that our 
people do not think alike. If there is a real variety of 
opinion among our people in the several regions of the 
country, we would be poor lovers of democratic self- 
government were we to wish to see those differences 
overridden by the majorities of a central Legislature. 
It is to be hoped that we still sufficiently understand the 
real processes of political life to know that a growing 
country must grow, that opinion such as government can 
be based upon develops by experience, not by authority, 
that a region forced is a region dissatisfied, and that 
spontaneous is better, more geniune, more permanent 
than forced agreement. 

The truth is that our State governments are many 
of them no longer truly representative governments. 
We are not, in fact, dissatisfied with local representa- 
tive assemblies and the government which they impose; 
we are dissatisfied, rather, with regulations imposed by 
commissions and assemblies which are no longer repre- 
sentative. It is a large subject, of many debatable 
parts, and I can only touch upon it here, but the fact is 
that we have imposed an impossible task upon our 
voters, and that because it is impossible they do not per- 
form it. It is impossible for the voters of any busy com- 
munity actually to pick out or in any real sense choose 
the very large number of persons we call upon them un- 
der our present State Constitutions to elect. They have 
neither the time nor the quick and easy means of co- 
operation which would enable them to make up the long 
lists of candidates for offices local and national upon 


COLLEGE AND STATE 47 


which they are expected to act. They must of necessity . 
leave the selection to a few persons who, from one 
motive or another, volunteer to make a business of it. 
These are the political bosses and managers whom the 
people obey and affect to despise. It is unjust to despise 
them. Under a system of innumerable nominations they 
are indispensable. A system of so-called popular elec- 
tions like ours could not be operated successfully with- 
out them. But it is true that by their constant and pro- 
fessional attention to the business of nomination a real 
popular choice of candidates is done away with entirely, 
and that our State officers and legislators are in effect 
appointed, not elected. ‘The question at an election is 
only which set of appointees shall be put into office, 
those appointed by the managers and bosses of this 
party or of that. It is this, whether our people are 
distinctly conscious of it or not, which has so seriously 
impaired their confidence in the State Legislatures and 
which has made them look about for new means by 
which to obtain a real choice in affairs. 

Members of Congress are themselves voted for on 
the lists which the local managers prepare, are them- 
selves appointed to their candidacy as the candidates for 
local functions are, but because they are relatively few 
in number and their office national, attention is more or 
less concentrated upon them. ‘There is a more general 
interest in their selection, by which party managers 
are sure to be somewhat checked and guided. After 
their election, moreover, they become members of an 
assembly highly organized and disciplined and act under 
a very strict party responsibility in which the personal 
force and character of the Speaker of the House plays 
a greater part than their own. The man by whom they 
are led is scarcely less conspicuous as a national figure 
than the President himself and they are but wheels in 
a great piece of machinery which is made sensitive to 
opinion in ways which local managers in no sort con- 
trol. The opinion of the whole country beats upon 


48 COLLEGE AND STATE 


them. The country feels, therefore, that, however 
selected, they are in some sense more representative, 
more to be depended on to register its thoughtful judg- 
ments, then the members of State Legislatures are. 

It is for this reason as much as for any other that the 
balance of powers between the States and the Federal 
Government now trembles at an unstable equilibrium 
and we hesitate into which scale to throw the weight of 
our purpose and preference with regard to the legisla- 
tion by which we shall attempt to thread the maze of 
our present economic needs and perplexities. It may 
turn out that what our State governments need is not to 
be sapped of their powers and subordinated to Con- 
gress, but to be reorganized along simpler lines which 
will make them real organs of popular opinion. A goy- 
ernment must have organs; it cannot act inorganically, 
by masses. It must have a lawmaking body; it can no 
more make laws through its voters than it can make 
them through its newspapers. 

It would be fatal to our political vitality really to 
strip the States of their powers and transfer them to 
the Federal Government. It cannot be too often re- 
peated that it has been the privilege of separate develop- 
ment secured to the several regions of the country by 
the Constitution, and not the privilege of separate de- 
velopment only, but also that other more fundamental 
privilege that lies back of it, the privilege of independent 
local opinion and individual conviction, which has given 
speed, facility, vigor, and certainty to the processes of 
our economic and political growth. To buy temporary 
ease and convenience for the performance of a few great 
tasks of the hour at the expense of that would be to 
pay too great a price and to cheat all generations for 
the sake of one. 

Undoubtedly the powers of the Federal Government 
have grown enormously since the creation of the Gov- 
ernment; and they have grown for the most part with- 
out amendment of the Constitution. But they have 


1 


COLLEGE AND STATE 49 


grown in almost every instance by a process which must 
be regarded as perfectly normal and legitimate. The 
Constitution cannot be regarded as a mere legal docu- 
ment, to be read as a will or a contract would be. It 
must of the necessity of the case be a vehicle of life. 
As the life of the nation changes so must the interpre- 
tation of the document which contains it change, by a 
nice adjustment determined, not by the original inten- 
tion of those who drew the paper, but by the exigencies 
and the new aspects of life itself. Changes of fact and 
alterations of opinion bring in their train actual exten- 
sions of community of interest, actual additions to the 
catalogue of things which must be included under the 
general terms of the law. The commerce of great sys- 
tems of railway is of course not the commerce of wagon 
roads, the only land commerce known in the days when 
the Constitution was drafted. “The common interests 
of a nation bound together in thought and interest and 
action by the telegraph and the telephone, as well as! 
by the rushing mails which every express train carries, 
have a scope and variety, an infinite multiplication and 
intricate interlacing of which a simpler day can have had 
no conception. Every general term of the Constitution 
has come to have a meaning as varied as the actual 
variety of the things which the country now shares in 
common. 

The character of the process of constitutional adapta- 
tion depends first of all upon the wise or unwise choice 
of statesmen, but ultimately and chiefly upon the opin- 
ion and purpose of the courts. The chief instrumen- 
tality by which the law of the Constitution has been 
extended to cover the facts of national development 
has been judicial interpretation, the decisions of the 
courts. The process of formal amendment of the Con- 
stitution was made so difficult by the provisions of the 
Constitution itself that it has seldom been feasible to 
use it; and the difficulty of formal amendment has un- 
doubtedly made the courts more liberal, not to say more 


50 COLLEGE AND STATE 


lax, in their interpretation than they would otherwise 
have been. ‘The whole business of adaptation was 
theirs, and they have undertaken it with open minds, 
sometimes even with boldness and a touch of audacity. 
But, though they have sometimes been lax, though they 
have sometimes yielded, it may be, to the pressure of 
popular agitation and of party interest, they have not 
often overstepped the bounds of legitimate extension. 
By legitimate extension I mean extension which does not 
change the character of the Federal power but only its 
items,—which does not make new kinds, but only new 
particulars of power. 

The members of courts are necessarily men of their 
own generation: we would not wish to have them men 
of another. Constitutional law, as well as statesman- 
ship, must look forward, not backward, and, while we 
should wish the courts to be conservative, we should 
certainly be deeply uneasy were they to hold affairs 
back from their natural alteration. Change as well as 
- stability may be conservative. Conservative change is 
conservative, not of prejudices, but of principles, of es- 
tablished purposes and conceptions, the only things 
which in government or in any other field of action can 
abide. Conservative progress is a process, not of reyo- 
lution, but of modification. In our own case and in the 
matter now under discussion it consists in a slowly pro- 
gressive modification and transfer of functions as be- 
tween the States and the Federal Government along 
the lines of actual development, along the lines of actual 
and substantial alterations of interest and of that na- 
tional consciousness which is the breath of all true 
amendment,—and not along lines of party or individual 
purpose, nor by way of desperate search for remedies 
for existing evils. 

No doubt courts must “make” law for their own 
day, must have the insight which adapts law to its 
uses rather than its uses to it, must sometimes venture 
upon decisions which have a certain touch of states- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 51 


manlike initiative in them. We shall often find our- 
selves looking to them for strong and fearless opinions. 
But there are two kinds of “strong” opinions, as a 
distinguished English jurist long ago pointed out. There 
are those which are strong with the strength of insight 
and intelligence and those which are strong with the 
mere strength of will. ‘The latter sort all judges who 
act with conscience, mindful of their oaths of office, 
should eschew as they would eschew the actual breaking 
of law. That the Federal courts should have such a 
conscience is essential to the integrity of our whole na- 
tional action. Actual alterations of interest in the 
makeup of our national life, actual, unmistakable 
changes in our national consciousness, actual modifica- 
tions in our national activities such as give a new aspect 
and significance to the well-known purposes of our fun- 
damental law, should of course be taken up into deci- 
sions which add to the number of things of which the 
national Government must take cognizance and regu- 
lative control. That is a function of insight and intelli- 
gence. The courage it calls for on the part of the courts 
is the courage of conviction. But they are, on the other 
hand, called on to display the more noble courage which 
defends ancient conviction and established principle 
against the clamor, the class interests and the changeful 
moods of parties. They should never permit themselves 
wilfully to seek to find in the phrases of the Constitu- 
tion remedies for evils which the Federal Govern- 
ment was never intended to deal with. 

Moral and social questions originally left to the sev- 
eral States for settlement can be drawn into the field of 
Federal authority only at the expense of the self-depend- 
ence and efficiency of the several communities of which 
our complex body politic is made up. Paternal morals, 
morals enforced by the judgment and choices of the 
central authority at Washington, do not and cannot 
create vital habits or methods of life unless sustained 
by local opinion and purpose, local prejudices and con- 


52 COLLEGE AND STATE 


venience,—unless supported by local convenience and in- 
terest; and only communities capable of taking care of 
themselves will, taken together, constitute a nation capa- 
ble of vital action and control. You cannot atrophy the 
parts without atrophying the whole. Deliberate adding 
to the powers of the Federal Government by sheer judi- 
cial authority, because the Supreme Court can no longer 
be withstood or contradicted in the States, both saps the 
legal morality upon which a sound constitutional sys- 
tem must rest and deprives the Federal structure as a 
whole of the vitality which has given the Supreme Court 
itself its increase of power. It is the alchemy of decay. 

It would certainly mean that we had acquired a new 
political temper, never hitherto characteristic of us, that 
we had utterly lost confidence in what we set out to do, 
were we now to substitute abolition for reform,—were 
we by degrees to do away with our boasted system of 
self-government out of mere impatience and disgust, 
like those who got rid of an instrument they no longer 
knew how to use. There are some hopeful signs that 
we may be about to return to the better way of a time 
when we knew how to restrict government and adapt it 
to our uses in accordance with principles we did not 
doubt, but adhered to with an ardent fervor which was 
the best evidence of youth and virility. We have long 
been painfully conscious that we have failed in the mat- 
ter of city government. It is an age of cities, and if 
we cannot govern our cities we cannot govern at all. 
For a little while we acted as if in despair. We began 
to strip our city governments of their powers and to 
transfer them to State commissions or back to the Legis- 
latures of the States, very much as we are now stripping 
the States of their powers and putting them in the hands 
of Federal commissions. ‘The attempt was made to 
put the police departments of some of our cities, for 
example, in the hands of State officers, and to put the 
granting of city franchises back into the hands of the 
central Legislature of the State, in the hope, apparently, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 53 


that a uniform regulation of such things by the opinion 
of the whole State might take the place of corrupt con- 
trol by city politicians. But it did not take us long, 
fortunately, to see that we were moving in the wrong 
direction. We have now turned to the better way of 
reconsidering the whole question of the organization 
of city governments, and are likely within a generation 
to purify them by simplifying them, to moralize them 
by placing their government in the hands of a few per- 
sons who can really be selected by popular preference 
instead of by the private processes of nomination by 
party managers, and who, because few and conspicuous, 
can really be watched and held to a responsibility which 
they will honor because they cannot escape. 

It is to be hoped that we shall presently have the 
same light dawn upon us with regard to our State gov- 
ernments, and, instead of upsetting an ancient system, 
hallowed by long use and deep devotion, revitalize it 
by reorganization. And that, not only because it is an 
old system long beloved, but also because we are certi- 
fied by all political history of the fact that centralization 
is not vitalization. Moralization is by life, not by stat- 
ute, by the interior impulse and experience of commu- 
nities, not by fostering legislation which is merely the 
abstraction of an experience which may belong to a 
nation as a whole or to many parts of it without having 
yet touched the thought of the rest anywhere to the 
quick. The object of our Federal system is to bring the 
understandings of constitutional government home to 
the people of every part of the nation, to make them 
part of their consciousness as they go about their daily 
tasks. If we cannot successfully effect its adjustments 
by the nice local adaptations of our older practice, we 
have failed as constitutional statesmen. 


THE BANKER AND THE NATION 


ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF 
THE AMERICAN BANKERS’ ASSOCIATION AT DENVER, 
COLORADO, SEPTEMBER 30, 1908. FROM THE “‘CON- 
GRESSIONAL RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, 
VOL. XLVIII, APPENDIX, PP. 502-503. 


R. PRESIDENT, ladies, and gentlemen: We have 
witnessed in recent years an_ extraordinary 
awakening of the public conscience with regard to the 
methods of modern business, and of the private con- 
science also, for scores of business men have become 
conscious, as they never were before, that the eager push 
and ambition and competition of modern business had 
hurried them, oftentimes unconsciously, into practices 
which they had not stopped, in the heat of the struggle, 
to question, but which they now see to have been im- 
moral and against the public interest. Sometimes the 
process of their demoralization was very subtle, very 
gradual, very obscure and therefore hidden from their 
consciences. Sometimes it was crude and obvious 
enough, but they did not stop to be careful, thinking of 
their rivals and not of their morals. But now the moral 
and political aspects of the whole matter are laid bare 
to their own view as well as to the view of the world, 
and we have run out of quiet waters into a very cyclone 
of reform. No man is so poor as not to have his poli- 
cies for everything. ‘The whole structure of society is 
being critically looked over, and changes of the most 
radical character are being soberly discussed, which it 
would take generations to perfect, but which we are 
hopefully thinking of putting out to contract to be fin- 
54 


COLLEGE AND STATE 55 


ished by a specified date well within the limits of our own 
time. 

It is not my purpose on the present occasion to dis- 
cuss particular policies and proposals. I wish, rather, 
to call your attention to some of the large aspects of the 
matter, which we should carefully consider before we 
make up our minds which way we should go and with 
what purpose we should act. 

What strikes one most forcibly in the recent agita- 
tions of public opinion is the anatomy of our present 
economic structure which they seem to disclose. Sharp 
class contrasts and divisions have been laid bare—not 
class distinctions in the old world or the old-time sense, 
but sharp distinctions of power and opportunity quite 
as significant. For the first time in the history of 
America there is a general feeling that issue is now 
joined, or about to be joined, between the power of accu- 
mulated capital and the privileges and opportunities of. 
the masses of the people. The power of accumulated 
capital is now, as at all other times and in all other cir- 
cumstances, in the hands of a comparatively small num- 
ber of persons, but there is a very widespread impression 
that those persons have been able in recent years as 
never before to control the national development in 
their own interest. The contest is sometimes said to be 
between capital and labor, but that is too narrow and 
too special a conception of it. It is, rather, between 
capital in all its larger accumulations and all other less 
concentrated, more dispersed, smaller, and more indi- 
vidual economic forces; and every new policy proposed 
has as its immediate or ultimate object the restraint 
of the power of accumulated capital for the protection 
and benefit of those who cannot command its use. 

This anatomizing of our social structure, this pulling 
it to pieces and scrutinizing each part of it separately, as 
if it had an independent existence and interest and could 
live not only separately but in contrast and contest with 
its other parts, as if it had no organic union with them 


56 >: \COLLEGEVAND STATE 


or dependence upon them, is a very dangerous and un- 
wholesome thing at best; but there are periods of ex- 
citement and inquiry when it is inevitable, and we should 
make the best of it, if only to hasten the process of 
reintegration. This process of segregation and con- 
trast is always a symptom of deep discontent. It is not 
set afoot accidentally. It generally comes about, as it 
has come about now, because the several parts of so- 
ciety have forgotten their organic connections, their 
vital interdependence, and have become individually self- 
ish or hostile—because the attention of a physician is 
in fact necessary. It has given occasion to that exten- 
sive and radical programme of reform which we call so- 
cialism and with which so many hopeful minds are now 
in love. We shall be able to understand our present con- 
fused affairs thoroughly and handle them wisely only 
when we have made clear to ourselves how his situa- 
tion arose, how this programme was provoked, and 
what we individually and collectively have to do with it. 

The abstract principles of socialism it is not difficult 
to admire. They are, indeed, hardly distinguishable 
- from the abstract principles of Democracy. The ob- 
ject of the thoughtful Socialist is to effect such an organ- 
ization of society as will give the individual his best 
protection and his best opportunity, and yet serve the 
interest of all rather than the interest of any one in par- 
ticular; an organization of mutual benefit based upon 
the principle of the solidarity of all interests. But the 
programme of socialism is another matter. It is not un- 
fair to say that the programmes of socialism so far put 
forth are either utterly vague or entirely impracticable. 
That they are now being taken very seriously and es- 
poused very ardently is evidence, not of their excellence 
or practicability, but only of the fact, to which no ob- 
servant man can any longer shut his eyes, that the con- 
testing forces in our modern society have broken its 
unity and destroyed its organic harmony—not because 
that was inevitable, but because men have used their 


COLLEGE AND STATE 57 


power thoughtlessly and selfishly, and legitimate under- 
takings have been pushed to illegitimate lengths. There 
has been an actual process of selfish segregation, and 
society has so reacted from it that almost any thorough- 
going programme of reintegration looks hopeful and 
attractive. Such programme cannot be thrust aside or 
defeated by mere opposition and denial; it can be over- 
come only by wiser and better programmes, and these 
it is our duty as patriotic citizens to find. 

The most striking fact about the actual organization | 
of modern society is that the most conspicuous, the most 
readily wielded, and the most formidable power is not 
the power of government, but the power of capital. 
Men of our day in England and America have almost 
forgotten what it is to fear the Government, but have 
found out what it is to fear the power of capital, to 
watch it with jealousy and suspicion, and trace to it the 
source of every open or hidden wrong. Our memories 
are not of history, but of what our own lives and experi- 
ences and the lives and experiences of the men about us 
have disclosed. We have had no experience in our day, 
or in the days of which our fathers have told us, of the 
tyranny of governments, of their minute control and 
arrogant interference and arbitrary regulation of our 
business and of our daily life, though it may be that we 
shall know something of it in the near future. We have 
forgotten what the power of government means and 
have found out what the power of capital means; and 
so we do not fear government and are not jealous of 
political power. We fear capital and are jealous of its 
domination. There will be need of many cool heads 
and much excellent judgment amongst us to curb this 
new power without throwing ourselves back into the 
gulf of the old from which we were the first of the 
nations of the world to find a practicable way of escape. 

The only forces that can save us from the one extreme 
or the other are those forces of social reunion and social 
reintegration which every man of station and character 


58 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and influence in the country can in some degree and 
within the scope of his own life set afoot. We must open 
our minds wide to the new circumstances of our time, 
must bring about a new common understanding and ef- 
fect a new coordination in the affairs which most concern 
us. Capital must give over its too great preoccupation 
with the business of making those who control it individ- 
ually rich and must study to serve the interests of the 
people as a whole. It must draw near to the people and 
serve them in some intimate way of which they will be 
conscious. Voluntary codperation must forestall the in- 
voluntary codperation which legislators will otherwise 
seek to bring about by the coercion of law. Capital now 
looks to the people like a force and interest apart, with 
which they must deal as with a master and not as with 
a friend. Those who handle capital in the great indus- 
trial enterprises of the country know how mistaken this 
attitude is. “They see how intimately the general wel- 
fare and the common interest are connected with every 
really sound process of business, and how all antago- 
nisms and misunderstandings hamper and disorganize 
industry. But no one can now mistake the fact and no 
one knows better than the manipulators of capital how 
many circumstances there are to justify the impression. 
We can never excuse ourselves from the necessity of 
dealing with facts. 

I am sure that many bankers must have become 
acutely and sensitively aware of the fact that the most 
isolated and the most criticized interest of all is bank- 
ing. ‘The banks are, in the general view and estimation, 
the special and exclusive instrumentalities of capital used 
on a large scale. They stand remote from the laborer 
and the body of the people, and put whatever comes into 
their coffers at the disposal of the captains of indus- 
try, the great masters of finance, the corporations which 
are in the way to crush all competitors. 

I shall not now stop to ask how far this view of the 
banks is true. I need not tell you that in large part it 


COLLEGE AND STATE 59 


is false. I know that the close connection of the banks 
with the larger operations of commerce and finance is 
natural and not illicit, and that the banks turn very 
cheerfully and very cordially to the smaller pieces of 
business. [ime was when the banks never advertised, 
never condescended to solicit business; now they eagerly 
seek it in small pieces as well as big. The banks are in 
fact and in spirit at the service of every man to the 
limit of his known trustworthiness and credit, and they 
know very well that there is profit in multiplying small 
accounts and small loans. But, on the other hand, they 
are in fact singularly remote from the laborer and the 
body of the people. They are particularly remote from 
the farmer and the small trader of our extensive country- 
sides. 

Let me illustrate what I mean. Roughly speaking, 
every town of any size and importance in the United 
States has its bank. But the large majority of our peo- 
ple live remote from banks, are unknown to the officers 
who manage them and dispense their credit. More- 
over, our system of banking is such that local banks 
must for the most part be organized and maintained 
by local capital and have at their disposal only local 
resources. It is difficult for those of you who do not 
travel leisurely in the vast rural districts of this coun- 
try to realize how few and far between the banks are, 
or how local and petty, and without extensive power to 
help the community most of them are when you find 
them. A friend of mine rode through seven counties 
of one of the oldest of our States before finding any 
place where he could change a $20 bill; and I myself 
was obliged one summer, in a thriving agricultural dis- 
trict, to get change for bills of any considerable denom- 
ination sent to me by express from banks 50 miles dis- 
tant. The business of the country was done largely by 
barter. I do not wonder that the men thereabout 
thought that the money of the country was being hoarded 
somewhere, presumably in Wall Street. None of it was 


60 COLLEGE, AND STATE 


accessible to them, though they by no means lacked in 
this world’s goods. ‘They believed in the free coinage 
of silver, not realizing that the silver, too, would have 
to be handled by the banks and would be equally inacces- 
sible. It would not have been shipped like ordinary 
merchandise. 

‘‘Where and whose is the money of the country ?”’ is 
the question which the average voter wants his political 
representative to answer for him. Bankers can answer 
the question, but I have met very few of them who could 
answer it in a way the ordinary man could understand. 
Bankers, as a body of experts in a particular, very re- 
sponsible business, hold, and hold very clearly, certain 
economic facts and industrial circumstances in mind, and 
possess a large and unusually interesting mass of special- 
ized knowledge of which they are masters in an extraor- 
dinary degree. But I trust you will not think me im- 
pertinent if I say that they excuse themselves from know- 
ing a great many things which it would manifestly be to 
their interest to know, and that they are oftentimes 
singularly ignorant, or at any rate singularly indifferent, 
about what I may call the social functions and the politi- 
cal functions of banking, particularly in a country gov- 
‘ erned by opinion. I am not here to advocate the estab- 
lishment of branch banks or argue in favor of anything 
which you understand better than I do. But I have 
this to say, and to say with great confidence: ‘That if 
a system of branch banks, very simply and inexpen- 
sively managed and not necessarily open every day in 
the week, could be organized, which would put the re- 
sources of the rich banks of the country at the disposal 
of whole countrysides to whose merchants and farmers 
only a restricted and local credit is now open, the atti- 
tude of plain men everywhere towards the banks and 
banking would be changed utterly within less than a 
generation. You know that you are looking out for in- 
vestments; that even the colossal enterprises of our time 
do not supply you with safe investments enough for the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 61 


money that comes in to you; and that banks here, there, 
and everywhere are tempted, as a consequence, to place 
money in speculative enterprises, and even themselves 
to promote questionable ventures in finance at a fearful 
and wholly unjustifiable risk in order to get the usury 
they wish from their resources. You sit only where 
these things are spoken of and big returns coveted. 
There would be plenty of investments if you carried 
your money to the people of the country at large and 
had agents in hundreds of villages who knew the men 
in their neighborhoods who could be trusted with loans 
and who would make profitable use of them. Your 
money, moreover, would quicken and fertilize the coun- 
try, and that other result would follow which I think 
you will agree with me is not least important in my 
argument: The average voter would learn that the - 
money of the country was not being hoarded; that it 
was at the disposal of any honest man who could use 
it; and that to strike at the banks was to strike at the 
general convenience and the general prosperity. I do 
not know what the arguments against branch banks are; 
but these I know from observation to be the arguments 
for them, and very weighty arguments they seem to 
me to be. 

That, however, need not concern me. I am not so 
much interested in argument as in illustration. My - 
theme is this: Bankers, like men of every other interest, 
have their lot and part in the Nation—their social func- 
tion and their political duty. We have come upon a 
time of crisis when it is made to appear, and is in part 
true, that interest is arrayed against interest; and it is . 
our duty to turn the war into peace. It is the duty of 
the banker, as it is the duty of men of every other class, 
to see to it that there be in his calling no class spirit, no 
feeling of antagonism to the people, to plain men whom 
the bankers, to their great loss and detriment, do not 
know. It is their duty to be intelligent, thoughtful, 
patriotic intermediaries between capital and the people 


62 COLLEGE AND STATE 


at large; to understand and serve the general interest; 
to be public men serving the country as well as private 
men serving their depositors and the enterprises whose 
_ securities and notes they hold. How capital is to draw 
near to the people and serve them at once obviously and 
safely is the question, the great and now pressing ques- 
tion, which it is the particular duty of the banker to 
- answer. No one else can answer it so intelligently; and 
if he does not answer it others will, it may be to his 
detriment and to the general embarrassment of the 
country. ‘The occasion and the responsibility are yours. 

We live in a very interesting time of awakening, in a 
period of reconstruction and readjustment, when every- 
thing is being questioned and even old foundations are 
threatened with change. But it is not a time of danger 
if we do not lose our heads and ignore our consciences. 
It is, on the contrary, a time of extraordinary privilege 
and opportunity when men of every class have begun 
to think upon the themes of the public welfare as they 
never thought before. I feel that I have only to speak 
of your social duty and political function to meet with 
a very instant and effectual response out of your own 
thoughts and purposes. I think that you will agree with 
me that our responsibility in a democratic country is not 
only for what we do and for the way and spirit in which 
we do it, but also for the impression we make. We are 
bound to make the right impression and to contribute 
by our action not only to the general prosperity and 
well-being of the country, but also to its general instruc- 
tion, so that men of different classes can understand each 
other, can serve each other with intelligence and energy. 
There is a sense in which a democratic country states- 
manship is forced upon every man of initiative, every 
man capable of leading anybody; and this J believe to be 
the particular period when statesmanship is forced upon 
bankers and upon all those who have to do with the 
application and use of the vast accumulated wealth of 
this country. We should, for example, not only seek 


COLLEGE AND STATE 63 


the best solution for our currency difficulties, not only 
the safest and most scientific system of elastic currency 
to meet the convenience of a country in which the 
amount of cash needed at different times fluctuates enor- 
mously and violently, but we should also seek to give the 
discussions of such matters such publicity and such gen- 
eral currency and such simplicity as will enable men of 
every kind and calling to understand what we are talking 
about and take an intelligent part in the discussion. 
We cannot shut ourselves in as experts to our own 
business. We must open our thoughts to the country 
at large and serve the general intelligence as well as the 
general welfare. 


ROBERT E. LEE: AN INTERPRETATION 


DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE HUNDREDTH AN- 
NIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ROBERT E. LEE, AT 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, JANUARY 
19, I909, AND NOW REPRINTED FROM THE BOOK 
ENTITLED ‘‘ROBERT E. LEE,’’ BY WOODROW WILSON, 
PUBLISHED IN 1924 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH 
CAROLINA PRESS. 


N one sense, it is a superfluous thing to speak of 

General Lee,—he does not need the eulogy of any 
man. His fame is not enhanced, his memory is not lifted 
to any new place of distinction by any man’s word of 
praise, for he is secure of his place. It is not necessary 
to recount his achievements; they are in the memory 
not only of every soldier, but of every lover of high 
and gifted men who likes to see achievements which pro- 
ceed from character, to see those things done which 
are not done with the selfish purpose of self-aggran- 
dizement, but in order to serve a country, and prove 
worthy of a cause. These are the things which make 
the name of this great man prominent not only, but in 
some regards unapproachable in the history of our 
country. 

I happened the other day to open a book not printed 
in this part of .the country, the Century Cyclopedia of 
Names, and to turn to the name of Lee, and I was very 
much interested, and I must say a little touched, by the 
simple characterization it gave of the man: “A cele- 
brated American general in the Confederate service.” 
How perfectly that sums the thing up,—a celebrated 
American general, a national character who won his 
chief celebrity in the service of a section of the country, 

BS 


COLLEGE AND STATE 65 


but who was not sectionalized by the service, is recog- 
nized now as a national hero; who was not rendered the 
less great because he bent his energies towards a purpose 
which many men conceived not to be national in its end. 

I think this speaks something for the healing process 
of time. I think it says something for the age, that it 
should have taken so short a time for the whole nation 
to see the true measure of this man, and it takes me 
back to my own feeling about one’s necessary connec- 
tion with the region in which he was born. 

There is an interesting and homely story of Daniel 
Webster, how after one very tedious and laborious 
session of the Senate he returned to his home in Boston 
quite worn out and told his servant that he was going 
upstairs to lie down, and must not be disturbed on 
any account. He had hardly reached his room when 
some gentlemen from the little village in New Hamp- 
shire which had been his original boyhood home, called 
at the door and said they must see him,—that a man’s 
life was involved. They had come down as the neigh- 
bours of a lad in his old home, charged, as they believed 
falsely, with murder. ‘They believed in the lad but 
were confounded by circumstantial evidence; and they 
thought that there was only one man in the United 
States who could unravel the tangle of misleading in- 
dications; and they had come to see Mr. Webster. The 
servant was afraid to call him but yielded to their 
urgency, and he came down in no pleasant humour. To 


all their appeals he replied, ‘Gentlemen, it is impos- ~ 


sible; I am worn out. Iam not fit for the service, and 
cannot go.” Seeing at last that it was probably hope- 
less, the spokesman of the little company at last rose 
and said, ‘‘Well, I don’t know what the neighbours will 
say.’ “Oh! well,” said Webster, ‘‘if it is the neighbours, 
I will go!” There came to his mind the vision of some 
little groups of old men in that village where he had 
lived as a boy whose comments he could surmise, and 
that was the particular condemnation he could not face. 


66 COLLEGE AND STATE 


So all great patriots have had a deep local rootage. 
You can love a country if you begin by loving a com- 
munity, but you cannot love a country if you do not 
have the true rootages of intimate affection which are 
the real sources of all that is strongest in human life. 
So this ‘‘celebrated American general’ had his neces- 
sary local rootages, and the sap of his manhood united 
him with the soil on which he was bred. It was there 
he won his celebrity and made secure his fame. I think 
one of the most interesting things to remember about 
Lee is that he was an ideal combination of what a man 
inherits and what he may make of himself. 

General Lee came of a distinguished family. His 
father, Light Horse Harry Lee, was of the finest breed 
of those gallant soldiers who made the country free; 
and the lad in his boyhood must have been bred to 
many memories of high deeds and to many fine con- 
ceptions of patriotic service at the hearth where his 
father sat. 

I like to think, for my part, that Light Horse Harry 
Lee was bred under the teaching of Doctor John With- 
erspoon, the great Scotchman who at that day presided 
over the college at Princeton, and that there is some 
sort of Princetonian lineage in the man whom we honor 
now. 

But these soldierly traditions, this impulse from a 
great father, were not what made Robert E. Lee. 
After all, what makes and distinguishes a man is not 
that he is derived from any family or from any train- 
ing, but that he has discovered for himself the true role 
of manhood in his own day. No man gains distinction 
who does not make some gift of his own individuality 
to the thing that he does,—to the generation which he 
serves. 

This man was not great because he was born of a 
soldier and bred in a school of soldiers, but because, 
of whomsoever he may have been born, howsoever he 
was bred, he was a man who saw his duty, who con- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 67 


ceived it in high terms, and who spent himself, not 
upon his own ambitions, but in the duty that lay before 
him. We like to remember all the splendid family 
traditions of the Lees, but we like most of all to remem- 
ber that this man was greater than all the traditions of 
his family; that there was a culmination here that could 
not have been reached by the mere drift of what men 
remember, but must be reached by what men originate 
and conceive. 

I am not going to try to outline the career of Lee, 
because I feel the compulsion of that last characteristic 
of General Lee. I do not want to live, and I do not 
wish to ask you to live on the memory of what General 
Lee did. I want to remind you of how General Lee 
turned immediately from war, when it was past, to the 
future which was to come, and said, ‘‘I will do my part 
in trying to make the young men of this country ready 
for the things which are yet to be done.” 

We are not at liberty to walk with our eyes over 
our shoulders, recalling the things which were done in 
the past; we are bound in conscience to march with 
our eyes forward, with the accents of such men in our 
ears saying, ‘‘We lived not as you must live. We 
lived for our generation; we tried to do its tasks. 
Turn your faces and your hands likewise to the tasks 
that you have to do.” We would not be honouring 
General Lee if we did not think of him only enough 
to remind ourselves of what we have to do to 
be like him. The true eulogy of General Lee is a life 
which is meant to be patterned after his standards of 
duty and of achievement. And so I am not going to 
ask you to-night to look back at General Lee, but, rather 
to answer the question—‘‘What does General Lee mean 
to us?” : 

It is a notable thing that we see when we look back 
to men of this sort. The Civil War is something which 
we cannot even yet uncover in memory without stirring 
embers which may spring into a blaze. There was deep 


68 COLLEGE AND STATE 


colour and the ardour of blood in that contest. The 
field is lurid with the light of passion, and yet in the 
midst of that crimson field stands this gentle figure,— 
a man whom you remember, not as a man who loved 
war, but as a man moved by all the high impulses of 
gentle kindness, a man whom men did not fear, but 
loved; a man in whom everybody who approached him 
marked singular gentleness, singular sweetness, singular 
modesty,—none of the pomp of the soldier, but all the 
simplicity of the gentleman. ‘This man is in the centre 
of that crimson field, is the central figure of a great 
tragedy. A singular tragedy it seems which centres in 
a gentleman who loved his fellow-men and sought to 
serve them by the power of love, and who yet, in serving 
them with the power of love, won the imperishable 
fame of a great soldier! A singular contradiction! 

It is true that we do not think entirely correctly of 
Lee in supposing that he was compact entirely of gentle- 
ness. No man whom you deeply care for or look to for 
leadership is made up altogether of gentle qualities. 
When you come into the presence of a leader of men 
you know you have come into the presence of fire,— 
that it is best not incautiously to touch that man,—that 
there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him, 
that if you grapple his mind you will find that you have 
grappled with flame and fire. You do not want sweet- 
ness merely and light in men who lead you; and there 
was just as much fire in Lee as there was in Washington. 
In Washington it was more truly present. Every man 
who approached Washington had the singular impres- 
sion that he was in the presence of a man of tremendous 
passions. He was always well in hand; but you knew 
that the man himself was aware that he was driving 
a mettlesome team, which he had to watch at every 
moment to avoid sudden runaway, when circumstances 
were exigent or exciting. 

You did not get that impression when in the presence 
of Lee. I have only the delightful memory of standing, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 69 


when a lad, for a moment by General Lee’s side and 
looking up into his face, so that I have nothing but a 
child’s memory of the man; but those who saw him 
when they were men and could judge say that you got 
no impression of constrained and governed passion 
such as men got from General Washington. But when- 
ever General Lee was in the field no one dared cross 
him, no one dared neglect his orders, no one dared exer- 
cise a dangerous discretion in the carrying out of his 
commands. There would flare in the man a consuming 
fire of anger; those who were in his presence felt it was 
dangerous so much as to breathe naturally until it was 
past. There was something of the tiger in this man 
when his purpose was aroused and in action. It would 
immediately recede; quiet gentleness would come again, 
that perfect poise, that delightful sense of ease as he 
moved from one purpose to another; but you would 
not forget that moment of exposed fire,—you would 
know that you had been in the presence of consuming 
force. 

But what strikes me as most interesting in the example 
of General Lee is that this was not in one sense of the 
word personal force at all. Touch General Lee about 
himself and you never saw the flash of fire, but touch 
him about things he regarded as his duty, and you saw 
it instantly. So the force that presided in him was no 
other than that moral force which may be said to be a 
principle in action. There is a sense, I sometimes think, 
in which every one of us in whose life principle forms 
a part is merely holding up a light which he himself 
did not kindle, not his own principle, not something 
peculiar and individual to himself, but that light which 
must light all mankind, the love of truth, the love of 
duty, the love of those things which are not stated in 
the terms of personal interest. ‘That is the force and 
that the fire that moulds men or else consumes them. 

You need not be afraid of the fire that is in selfish 
passion, you can crush that; but you cannot crush the 


70 COLLEGE AND STATE 


fire that is in unselfish passion. You know that there 
you are in the presence of the greatest force in the 
world, the only force that lifts men or nations to great- 
ness, or purifies communities; and that is the consum- 
ing fire which we dare not touch. I apply this thought 
sometimes to existing circumstances. I grow tired often, 
as I tire of any futility, of hearing certain abuses con- 
demned and not having the condemnation followed by 
a list of the names of the persons who are guilty of 
them; for there is not a group of men in this country 
who could stand the heat of the fire that would scorch 
those names. You cannot scorch the abuse, but you can 
consume men by merely exposing them to this moral 
fire, which they know is the fire of their death; and 
that is the sort of force that burned in General Lee. 
All his life through you are aware of a conscious self- 
subordination to principles which lay outside of his per- 
sonal life. 

I have sometimes noted with a great deal of interest 
how careless we are about most words in our language, 
and yet how careful we are about some others; for 
example, there is one word which we do not use care- 
lessly and that is the word ‘‘noble.’’ We use the word 
“oreat’’ indiscriminately. A man is great because he 
has had great material success and has piled up a for- 
tune; a man is great because he is a great writer, or a. 
great orator; a man is great because he is a great hero. 
We notice in him some distinct quality that overtops 
like qualities in other men. But we reserve the word 
“noble” carefully for those whose greatness is not spent 
in their own interest. A man must have a margin of 
energy which he does not spend upon himself in order 
to win this title of nobility. He is noble in our popular 
conception only when he goes outside the narrow circle 
of self-interest, and begins to spend himself for the 
interest of mankind. Then, however humble his gifts, 
however undistinguished his intellectual force, we give 


COLLEGE AND STATE 71 


him this title of nobility, and admit him into the high 
peerage of men who will not be forgotten. 

Now that was the charactertistic of General Lee’s 
life. It was not only moral force, but it was moral force 
conscientiously guided by interests which were not his 
own. You do not need to have me illustrate that. It 
was manifestly not to General Lee’s personal interest 
to take command of the armies of the South. He 
could have taken command of the armies of the North; 
and, in spite of the noble quality of the Southern strug- 
gle, every man now sees that the forces of the world 
were sure to crush the self-assertion of the South; and 
General Lee knew enough of the force of the world, 
had been schooled enough in national armies to know 
upon which side the probability of material power lay 
and therefore the probability of success in arms. He 
knew that the South would be weak in that it could not 
count on the support of the world, and the North could. 
A man seeking his own aggrandizement would not have 
chosen as General Lee did. But he did not choose with 
any, even momentary regard for his personal fortune. 
He sacrificed himself for the things that were nearest, 
the things I have illustrated in the homely anecdote 
about Webster. He thought of the neighbours; he knew 
that a man’s nearest attachments are his best attach- 
ments, and his nearest duties his imperative duties. He 
had been born in Virginia, he was Virginia’s. Virginia 
could do with him as she pleased. And wherever that 
spirit obtains, wherever men can be found in the State 
of North Carolina, or in any other State, who con- 
scientiously live upon this principle, that they belong to 
North Carolina, that they belong to their people and to 
their State and must see to it that they yield themselves 
to the needs and commands of their people and do 
the things that are necessary to be done for their wel- 
fare, those are the men who, if they do not look merely 
to their own fame, will sometime be written upon the 


72 COLLEGE AND STATE 


roll of honour of the local and national history of this 
country. 

So that there is brought to the surface in General 
Lee, as it were, the consummate fire of a democratic 
nation, the perfect product of a common conscience and 
a common consciousness expressing itself in an instru- 
ment excellently suitable because of its own fine quality. 
You may use a clumsy instrument for the right purpose, 
but it is better to use a perfect instrument, and this man 
was like the finest steel adapting himself to the nicest 
strokes of precision and yet incapable of being snapped 
or broken by any impact. He was a perfect instrument 
for a thing which we too little think of. 

I do not believe in a democratic form of government 
because I think it the best form of government. It is 
the clumsiest form of government in the world. If 
you wanted to make a merely effective government you 
would make it of fewer persons. If you wanted to in- 
vent a government that would act with speed and quick 
force, you would be doing a clumsy thing to make it 
democratic in structure. ‘That is not purposed to be 
the best form, but to have the best sources. 

Did you ever think how the world managed politically 
to get through the Middle Ages? It got through them 
without breakdown because it had the Roman Catholic 
Church to draw upon for native gifts, and by no other 
means that I can see. If you will look at the politics of 
the Middle Ages you will see that states depended for 
their guidance upon great ecclesiastics, and they de- 
pended upon them because the community itself was 
in strata, was in classes, and the Roman Catholic Church 
‘was a great democracy. Any peasant could become a 
priest, and any priest a chancellor. And this reservoir 
of democratic power and native ability was what brought 
the Middle Ages through their politics. If they had 
not had a democratic supply of capacity they could not 
have conducted a sterile aristocratic polity. An aristo- 
cratic polity goes to seed. The establishment of a 


COLLEGE AND STATE 73 


democratic nation means that any man in it may, if he . 
consecrate himself and use himself in the right way, 
come to be the recognized instrument of a whole nation. 
It is an incomparably resourceful arrangement, though 
it is not the best practical organization of government. . 

In a man like General Lee you see a common con- 
sciousness made manifest; and this singular thing re- 
vealed, that by a root which seems to be a root of fail- 
ure a man my be lifted to be the model of a whole nation. 
For it is not an exaggeration to say that in all parts of 
this country the manhood and the self-forgetfulness 
and the achievements of General Lee are a conscious 
model to men who would be morally great. This man 
who chose the course which eventually led to practical 
failure is one of the models of the times. ‘‘A nation,” 
Browning says, ‘is but the attempt of many to rise to 
the completer life of one; and those who live as the 
models for the mass are singly of more value than they 
alhy 

The moral force of a country like America lies in 
the fact that every man has it within his choice to express 
the nation in himself. JI am interested in historical 
examples as a mere historian. I was guilty myself of 
the indiscretion of writing a history, but I will tell you 
frankly, if you will not let it go further, that I wrote it, 
not to instruct anybody else, but to instruct myself. I 
wrote the history of the United States in order to learn 
it. That may be an expensive process for other persons 
who bought the book, but I lived in the United States 
and my interest in learning their history was, not to 
remember what happened, but to find which way we 
were going. 

I remember a traveller telling me of being on a road 
in Scotland and asking a man breaking stone by the 
roadside if this was the road to so and so; the man 
said, “‘Where did you come from’; he answered “I 
don’t know whether it is any of your business where I 
came from.” ‘Weel,’ said the man, “it’s as muckle as 


74 COLLEGE AND STATE 


whaur ye’re ganging tae.” ‘There is a great deal of 
philosophy in that question asked by the roadside. If 
I am near a crossroad and ask if this is the road to so 
and so, it is a pertinent question to ask me where I came 
from. 

We often speak of a man as having “lost himself,” 
in a desert for example. Did you never reflect that that 
is the only thing he has not lost,—himself? He is 
there. The danger of the situation is that he has lost 
all the rest of the world. He doesn’t know where the 
North is, or the South, or the East, or the West,— 
has lost every point of the compass. The only way by 
which he can start is to get some fixed and known point 
by which he can determine his direction. A nation that 
does not know its history and heed its history has lost 
itself. Unless you know where you came from you 
do not know where you are going to. 

I am told by psychologists that if I did not remember 
who I was yesterday I would not know who I am to-day. 
' Now the same is true of a nation. A nation which 
does not remember what it was yesterday does not 
' know what it is to-day, or what it is trying todo. We 
are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where 
we came from or what we have been about. 

We have stumbled upon a confusing age; nothing 
is like it was fifteen years ago,—certainly in the field of 
economic endeavor, and we are casting about to dis- 
cover a new world without any standards taken out 
of an older world by which we can make the comparison. 

I was passing through the city of Omaha during the 
latter stages of the presidential campaign and I bought 
the morning paper, the Omaha Bee, and found in it an 
interesting article by my friend Mr. Rosewater in which 
he made capital fun of a quotation about the tariff from 
Mr. Bryan. I thought there was something odd about 
the quotation, and it turned out the next morning that 
Mr. Rosewater, himself a member of the Republican 
National Committee, had been making fun, not of a 


COLLEGE AND STATE 75 


quotation from Bryan, but of a quotation from the 
Republican platform. Now the point is, that unless 
you had an experienced nose in that campaign, if you 
picked up either of the platforms you had to look at 
the label to see which it was. ‘The reason is that in - 
recent years we have been looking about for expedients 
and policies and have not been looking about for prin: . 
ciples. 

If you want me to bid against you for a popular 
policy I will probably resort to the expedient of match- 
ing your bid if I think it is a good one; but if I happen 
to be restrained by certain knowledge of what happened 
once before, I may choose differently and by a longer 
measurement. I may say there are certain things going 
to happen in this; they are going to happen upon well- 
known and ancient principles: having read history I 
would be a fool if I did not know it. I am going to 
hark back to those fundamental principles which hold 
good despite changes of policy. I am not going to hark 
back to old policies, but I shall try to find out whether 
there is not some new and suitable expression of those 
old principles in new policies. Although I may not 
assist my party to win at the next election by such a 
course, it is sure thereby to win at some election, at 
which it will give it such distinction that the country 
will thereafter for a whole generation recognize in it 
the only safe counsellor it has. 

If you want to win at an election which occurs to- 
morrow probably you haven’t time to remind your fel- 
low-countrymen of the abiding principles upon which 
they should act; but if you form the habit of basing your 
advice upon definite principles you will presently gain 
a permanent following such as you could not possibly 
have gained upon any bidding for popularity by mere 
expedients. 

I want to say that the lesson of General Lee's life 
to me is that it is not the immediate future that should 
be the basis of the statesman’s calculation. If you had 


76 COLLEGE AND STATE 


been in Lee’s position, what would have been your cal- 
culation of expediency? Here was a great national 
power, material and spiritual, in the North. In the 
Northwest there had grown up by a slow process, as 
irresistible as the glacial movement, a great national 
feeling, a feeling in which was quite obliterated and lost 
the old idea of the separate sovereignty of states. In 
the South there had been a steadfast maintenance of the 
older conception of the union. What in such a case 
would you have said to your countrymen? “It will be 
most proper, as it will certainly be most expedient, for 
you to give in to the majority, and vote for the North- 
ern conception?” Not at all. If you had been of Lee’s 
kind you would have known that men’s consciences, 
men’s habits of thought, lie deeper than that, and you 
would have said: ‘‘No; this is not a time to talk about 
majorities; this is a time to express convictions; and if 
her conviction is not expressed by the South in terms 
of blood she will lose her character. These are her 
convictions, and if she yield them out of expediency 
she will have proved herself of the soft fibre of those 
who do not care to suffer for what they profess to 
love.’ Even a man who saw the end from the begin- 
ning should, in my conception as a Southerner, have 
voted for spending his people’s blood and his own, 
rather than pursue the weak course of expediency. 
There is here no mere device, no regard to the imme- 
diate future. What has been the result ?—ask yourself 
that. It has been that the South has retained her best 
asset, her self-respect. 

Let that great case serve as an example. Are you 
going into political campaigns of a less fundamental 
character on the ground of expediency, or are you going 
in on the ground of your real opinions and ultimate 
self-respect ? 

For my part, if I did not, after saturating myself 
in the conceptions upon which this government was 
formed, express my knowledge of those principles and 


COLLEGE AND STATE 77 


my belief in them by the way I voted, I would lose my 
self-respect; and I would not care to have anybody’s 
company in the poor practice. What this country needs 
now in the field of politics is principle; not measures of 
expediency, but principle,—principles expressed in terms 
of the present circumstances, but principles nevertheless. 
And principles do not spring up in a night; principles 
are not new, principles are ancient. 

There is one lesson that the peoples of the world have - 
learned so often that they ought to esteem themselves 
contemptible if they have to learn it again, and that is 
that if you concentrate the management of a people’s 
affairs in a single central government and carry that 
concentration beyond a certain point of oversight and 
regulation, you will certainly provoke again those revo- 
lutionary processes by which individual liberty was as- 
serted. We have had so little excess of government 
in this country that we have forgotten that excess of 
government is the very antithesis of liberty. So it seems : 
to me that the principle by which we should be guided 
above all others is this, that we do not want to harness 
men like Lee in the service of a managing government; 
we want to see to it that, though there is control, it is 
control of law and not the discretionary control of 
executive officials. We want to see to it that while 
there is the restraint of abuses, it is persons who are 
restrained, and not unnamed bodies of persons. There > 
is only, historically speaking, one possible successful pun- 
ishment of abuses of law, and that is, that when a wrong 
thing is done you find the man who did it and punish 
him. You can fine all the corporations there are, and 
fine them out of existence, and all you will have done 
will be to have embarrassed the commerce of the coun- 
try. You will have left the men who did it free to 
repeat it in other combinations. 

I am going to use an illustration which you can easily 
understand, but I am going to ask you not to misunder- 
stand it. Suppose I could incorporate an association of 


78 COLLEGE AND STATE 


burglars with the assurance that you would restrain their 
actions, not as individuals, but only as a corporation. 
Whenever a burglary occurred you would fine the cor- 
poration. They would be very much pleased with that 
arrangement, because it would leave them the service 
of their most accomplished burglars, who could fool 
you half the time and not be found out. Such a cor- 
poration would be willing to pay you a heavy fine for 
the privilege. Now I do not mean to draw a parallel 
between our great corporations and burglars,—that is 
where you are likely to misunderstand me, because I 
do not hold the general belief that the majority of the 
business men of this country are burglars; I believe, on 
the contrary, that the number of malicious men engaged 
in corporations in this country is very small. But that 
small number is singularly gifted, and until you have 
picked them out and distinguished them for punishment 
you have not touched the process by which they succeed 
in doing what they wish. You may say that this is a 
very difficult thing, that there is so much covert, so 
much undergrowth, the nation is so thickset with organ- 
izations that you cannot see them and run them to cover. 

Perhaps you are right; but that does not make any 
difference to my argument; whether difficult, or not, it 
has got to be done. If you don’t know enough to do 
it, it is none the less necessary to find the way. 

What have we been doing in the last fifteen years? 
Trying to remedy things which we have not stopped 
long enough to understand. 

I was talking the other day to a body of men which 
included a good many persons belonging to the profes- 
sion to which I used to belong. I used to be a lawyer. 
I said to these men: ‘I am sure there are a great many 
corporation lawyers in this audience and I have some- 
thing to say to them. You know exactly what is being 
done that ought not to be done. You complain that 
the legislators of this country are playing havoc with 
the industry of the country by trying to remedy things 


COLLEGE AND STATE 79 


in the wrong way. Now, if you really want to save 
the corporations, you will tell the legislators you com- 
plain of what ought to be done and how. If you do not, 
they will continue their experiments and destroy your 
corporations, but having said that to you I must add 
that I don’t expect you to have sense enough to do any- 
thing of the kind.” 

There is a hopeless sort of fidelity in men who are 
employed as advisers that prevents their seeing the 
coming of the deluge; and yet it is they who are to 
blame if it comes. If you and I had this difficult task 
in hand of regulating the corporations, whom would 
we call into counsel? The men who had handled the 
business. And yet they are the very men who will 
not yield us any service in the matter at all. ‘They are 
the very men who are neglecting this great example we 
are recalling to-night. They are acting upon lines of 
self-interest, closing in the lines of self-interest as about 
themselves, and about those whom they represent, and 
forgetting those greater interests which, if they forget, 
they oppose,—the interests of the nation and of our 
common life. And so hostility has sprung up where 
there should be cooperation, and blunders are com- 
mitted because men who know how the thing ought to 
be done will not give public counsel. 

We must stop long enough to know what we are 
about and then go fearlessly forward and do it against 
the guilty individuals. 

I think if I had an independent fortune, and could 
give up my present profession, I could find a delightful 
occupation. I would take up my residence in the city 
of Washington and would industriously find out from 
the central bureaus of inquiry what was going on in the 
larger business world of the United States. ‘Then I 
would prepare one or two addresses upon the knowledge 
which I had gained and would make a careful list of the 
names of the gentlemen who had been doing the things 
that ought not to be done. They could not do me any 


80 COLLEGE AND STATE 


harm physically, and I would enjoy the opinion they 
would have of me. If I could once get their names I 
would not need the assistance of the criminal law; I 
would only have to publish the names and prove the 
facts to put them out of business. Because the moral 
judgments of this country are as sound as they ever 
were, and if you direct them in the right channels they 
are irresistibly effective. At present we are directing 
them into oratorical channels and not into legislative or 
judicial channels. 

The channels of legislation, the humdrum daily ad- 
ministration of courts of justice are the effective chan- 
nels of government, and I would rather have govern- 
ment carried successfully on by such means than hear 
all the fine speeches that have been uttered by the most 
gifted speakers. I am not depreciating speakers, be- 
cause that is part of my own business, and I would not 
ask you to look with contempt upon the humble vocation 
which I attempt. But I would look with contempt upon 
myself if I supposed speaking to be a kind of action. 

Now, what does it mean that General Lee is accepted 
as a national hero? It means simply this delightful 
thing, that there are no sections in this country any 
more; that we are a nation and are proud of all the 
great heroes whom the great processes of our national 
life have elevated into conspicuous places of fame. I 
believe that the future lies with all those men who devote 
themselves to national thinking, who eschew those 
narrow calculations of self-interest which affect only 
particular communities and try to conceive of com- 
munities as a part of a great national life which must 
be purified in order that it may be successful. For we 
may pile up wealth until it exceed all fables of riches 
in ancient fiction and the nation which-possesses it may 
yet use it to malevolent ends. A poor nation such as 
the United States was in 1812, for example, if it is 
in the right, is more formidable to the world than the 
richest nation in the wrong. For the rich nation in the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 81 


wrong destroys the fair work that God has permitted 
and man has wrought; whereas, the poor nation, with 
purified purpose, is the stronger. It looks into men’s 
hearts and sees the spirit there; finds some expression of 
that spirit in life; bears the fine aspect of hope and 
exhibits in all its purposes the irresistible quality of rec- 
titude. ‘These are the things which make a nation for- 
midable. There is nothing so self-destructive as selfish- 
ness, and there is nothing so permanent as the work of 
hands that are unselfish. You may pile up fortunes and 
dissolve them, but pile up ideals and they will never be 
dissolved. A quiet company of gentlemen sitting . 
through a dull summer in the city of Philadelphia 
worked out for a poor and rural nation an immortal 
constitution, which has made statesmen all over the 
world feel confidence in the political future of the race. 
They knew that human liberty was a feasible basis of | 
government. 

There is always danger that certain men thinking 
only of the material prospects of their section, wishing 
to get the benefit of the tariff, it may be, or of this 
thing, or of that, when it comes to the distribution of 
favors, will write only the history which has been writ- 
ten again and again, whose reiteration has been repeated 
since the world began; from which no man will draw 
fresh inspiration; from which no ideal can spring, from 
which no strength can be drawn. Whereas the nation 
which denies itself material advantage and seeks those 
things which are of the spirit works not only for each 
generation, but for all generations, and works in the 
permanent and durable stuffs of humanity. 

I spoke just now in disparagement of the vocation of 
the orator. I wish there were some great orator who 
could go about and make men drunk with this spirit 
of self-sacrifice. I wish there were some man whose 
tongue might every day carry abroad the golden accents 
of that creative age in which we were born a nation; 
accents which would ring like tones of reassurance 


82 COLLEGE AND STATE 


around the whole circle of the globe, so that America 
might again have the distinction of showing men the 
way, the certain way. of achievement and of confident 
hope. 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A MAN OF THE 
PEOPLE 


ADDRESS ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF 
THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. CHICAGO, FEBRUARY I2, 
1909. TAKEN FROM “ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE 
TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY,” PP. 14-30. 


Y earliest recollection is of standing at my 
father’s gateway in Augusta, Georgia, when I 
was four years old, and hearing some one pass and say 
that Mr. Lincoln was elected and there was to be war. 
Catching the intense tones of his excited voice, | remem- 
ber running in to ask my father what it meant. What 
it meant, you need not be told. What it meant, we 
shall not here to-day dwell upon. We shall rather turn 
away from those scenes of struggle and of unhappy 
fraternal strife, and recall what has happened since to 
restore our balance, to remind us of the permanent 
issues of history, to make us single-hearted in our love 
of America, and united in our purpose for her ad- 
vancement. We are met here to-day to recall the 
character and achievements of a man who did not 
stand for strife, but for peace, and whose glory it was 
to win the affection alike of those whom he led and 
_of those whom he opposed, as indeed a man and a king 
among those who mean the right. 

It is not necessary that I should rehearse for you the 
life of Abraham Lincoln. It has been written in every 
school book. It has been rehearsed in every family. 
It were to impeach your intelligence if I were to tell 
you the story of his life. I would rather attempt to 
expound for you the meaning of his life, the signifi- 
cance of his singular and unique career. 

83 


84 COLLEGE AND STATE 


It is a very long century that separates us from the 
year of his birth. The nineteenth century was crowded 
with many significant events,—it seems to us in Amer- 
ica as if it were more crowded with significant events 
for us than for any other nation in the world,—and 
that far year 1809 stands very near its opening, when 
men were only beginning to understand what was in 
store for them. It was a significant century, not only 
in the field of politics but in the field of thought. Do 
you realize that modern science is not older than the 
middle of the last century? Modern science came into 
the world to revolutionize our thinking and our mate- 
rial enterprises just about the time that Mr. Lincoln 
was uttering those remarkable debates with Mr. Doug- 
las. The struggle which determined the life of the 
Union came just at the time when a new issue was 
joined in the field of thought, and men began to recon- 
struct their conceptions of the universe and of their 
relation to nature, and even of their relation to God. 
There is, I believe, no more significant century in the 
history of man than the nineteenth century, and its 
whole sweep is behind us. 

That year 1809 produced, as you know, a whole 
group of men who were to give distinction to its an- 
nals in many fields of thought and of endeavor. To 
mention only some of the great men who were born in 
1809: the poet Tennyson was born in that year, our 
own poet Edgar Allan Poe, the great Sherman, the 
great Mendelssohn, Chopin, Charles Darwin, William 
FE. Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln. Merely read that 
list and you are aware of the singular variety of gifts 
and purposes represented. ‘Tennyson was, to my think- 
ing, something more than a poet. We are apt to be so 
beguiled by the music of his verse as to suppose that 
its charm and power lie in its music; but there is some- 
thing about the poet which makes him the best inter- 
preter, not only of life, but of national purpose, and 
there is to be found in Tennyson a great body of inter- 


COLLEGE AND/STATE 85 


pretation which utters the very voice of Anglo-Saxon 
liberty. ‘That fine line in which he speaks of how Eng- 
lish liberty has “broadened down from precedent to 
precedent” embodies the noble slowness, the very proc- 
ess and the very certainty, of the forces which made 
men politically free in the great century in which he 
wrote. He was a master who saw into the heart of 
affairs, as well as a great musician who seemed to 
give them the symphony of sound. 

And then there was our own Poe, that exquisite 
workman in the human language, that exquisite artisan 
in all the nice effects of speech, the man who dreamed 
all the odd dreams of the human imagination, and who 
quickened us with all the singular stories that the mind 
can invent, and did it all with the nicety and certainty 
of touch of the consummate artist. 

And then there were Chopin and Mendelssohn, whose 
music constantly rings in our ears and lifts our spirits 
to new sources of delight. And there was Charles 
Darwin, with an insight into nature next to Newton’s 
own; and Gladstone, who knew how to rule men by 
those subtle forces of oratory which shape the history 
of the world and determine the relations of nations 
to each other. 

And then our Lincoln. When you read that name 
you are at once aware of something that distinguished 
it from all the rest. ‘There was in each of those other 
men some special gift, but not in Lincoln. You cannot 
pick Lincoln out for any special characteristic. He 
did not have any one of those peculiar gifts that the 
other men on this list possessed. He does not seem 
to belong in a list at all; he seems to stand unique and 
singular and complete in himself. The name makes the 
same impression upon the ear that the name of Shake- 
speare makes, because it is as if he contained a world 
within himself. And that is the thing which marks the 
singular stature and nature of this great—and, we would 
fain believe, typical—American. Because when you 


86 COLLEGE AND STATE 


try to describe the character of Lincoln you seem to 
be trying to describe a great process of nature. Lin- 
coln seems to have been of general human use and not 
of particular and limited human use. There was no 
point at which life touched him that he did not speak 
back to it instantly its meaning. ‘There was no affair 
that touched him to which he did not give back life, 
as if he had communicated a spark of fire to kindle 
it. The man seemed to have, slumbering in him, pow- 
ers which he did not exert of his own choice, but which 
woke the moment they were challenged, and for which 
no challenge was too great or comprehensive. 

You know how slow, how almost sluggish the devel- 
opment of the man was. You know how those who con- 
sorted with him in his youth noted the very thing of 
which I speak. They would have told you that Abra- 
ham Lincoln was good for nothing in particular; and 
the singular fact is he was good for nothing in particu- 
lar—he was good for everything in general. He did 
not narrow and concentrate his power, because it was 
meant to be diffused as the sun itself. And so he went 
through his youth like a man who has nothing to do, 
like a man whose mind is never halted at any point 
where it becomes serious, to seize upon the particular 
endeavor or occupation for which it is intended. He 
went from one sort of partial success to another sort 
of partial success, or, as his contemporaries would have 
said, from failure to failure, until—not until he found 
himself, but until, so to say, affairs found him, and 
the crisis of a country seemed suddenly to match the 
universal gift of his nature; until a great nature was 
summed up, not in any particular business or activity, 
but in the affairs of a whole country. It was charac- 
teristic of the man. 

Have you ever looked at some of those singular 
statues of the great French sculptor Rodin—those pieces 
of marble in which only some part of a figure is re- 
vealed and the rest is left in the hidden lines of the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 87 


marble itself; where there emerges the arm and the 
bust and the eager face, it may be, of a man, but his 
body disappears in the general bulk of the stone, and 
the lines fall off vaguely? I have often been made to 
think, in looking at those statues, of Abraham Lincoln. 
There was a little disclosed in him, but not all. You 
feel that he was so far from being exhausted by the 
demands of his life that more remained unrevealed 
than was disclosed to our view. The lines run off into 
infinity and lead the imagination into every great con- 
jecture. We wonder what the man might have done, 
what he might have been, and we feel that there was 
more promise in him when he died than when he was 
born; that the force was so far from being exhausted 
that it had only begun to display itself in its splendor 
and perfection. No man can think of the life of Lin- 
coln without feeling that the man was cut off almost 
at his beginning. 

And so it is with every genius of this kind, not singu- 
lar, but universal, because there were uses to which it 
was not challenged. You feel that there is no telling 
what it might have done in days to come, when there 
would have been new demands made upon its strength 
and upon its versatility. He is like some great reser- 
voir of living water which you can freely quaff but can 
never exhaust. There is something absolutely endless 
about the lines of such a life. 

And you will see that that very fact renders it diffi- 
cult indeed to point out the characteristics of a man like 
Lincoln. How shall you describe general human na- 
ture brought to its finest development ?—for such was 
this man. We say that he was honest: men used to call 
him “Honest Abe.” But honesty is not a quality. Hon- 
esty is the manifestation of character. Lincoln was 
honest because there was nothing small or petty about 
him, and only smallness and pettiness in a nature can 
produce dishonesty. Such honesty is a quality of large- 
ness. It is that openness of nature which will not conde- 


88 COLLEGE AND STATE 


scend to subterfuge, which is too big to conceal itself. 
Little men run to cover and deceive you. Big men can- 
not and will not run to cover, and do not deceive you. 
Of course, Lincoln was honest. But that was not a pe- 
culiar characteristic of him; that is a general descrip- 
tion of him. He was not small or mean, and his hon- 
esty was not produced by any calculation, but was the 
genial expression of the great nature that was behind it. 

Then we also say of Lincoln that he saw things with 
his own eyes. And it is very interesting that we can 
pick out individual men to say that of them. The op- 
posite of the proposition is, that most men see things 
with other men’s eyes. And that is the pity of the 
whole business of the world. Most men do not see 
things with their own eyes. If they did they would 
not be so inconspicuous as they consent to be. What 
most persons do is to live up to formulas and opinions 
and believe them, and never give themselves the trou- 
ble to ask whether they are true or not; so that there 
is a great deal of truth in saying that the trouble is, 
that men believe so many things that are not so, because 
they have taken them at second hand; they have ac- 
cepted them in the form they were giventothem. They 
have not reéxamined them. ‘They have not seen the 
world with their own eyes. But Lincoln saw it with 
his own eyes. And he not only saw the surface of it, 
but saw beneath the surface of it; for the characteristic 
of the seeing eye is that it is a discerning eye, seeing 
also that which is not caught by the surface; it penetrates 
to the heart of the subjects it looks upon. Not only did 
this man look upon life with a discerning eye. If you 
read of his youth and of his early manhood, it would 
seem that these were his only and sufficient pleasures. 
Lincoln seemed to covet nothing from his business ex- 
cept that it would give him leisure enough to do this 
very thing—to look at other people; to talk about 
them; to sit by the stove in the evening and discuss poli- 
tics with them; to talk about all the things that were 


COLLEGE AND STATE 89 


going on, to make shrewd, penetrating comments upon 
them, to speak his penetrating jests. 

I had a friend once who said he seriously thought 
that the business of life was conversation. ‘There is a 
good deal of Mr. Lincoln’s early life which would indi- 
cate that he was of the same opinion. He believed that, 
at any rate, the most attractive business of life was 
conversation; and conversation, with Lincoln, was an 
important part of the business of life, because it was 
conversation which uncovered the meanings of things 
and illuminated the hidden places where nobody but 
Lincoln had ever thought of looking. 

You remember the very interesting story told about 
Mr. Lincoln in his early practice as a lawyer. Some 
business firm at a distance wrote to him and asked him 
to look into the credit of a certain man who had asked 
to have credit extended to him by the firm. Mr. Lin- 
coln went around to see the man at his place of busi- 
ness, and reported to this effect: that he had found the 
man in an office which contained one table and two 
chairs. ‘‘But,’’ he added, “‘there is a hole in the corner 
that would bear looking into.” That anecdote, slight 
as it is, is typical of Mr. Lincoln. He sometimes found 
the character of the man lurking in a hole; and when 
his speech touched that character it was illuminated; 
you could not frame otherwise a better characteriza- 
tion. That seemed to be the business of the man’s 
life; to look at things and to comment upon them; and 
his comment upon them was just as fearless and just 
as direct as it was shrewd and penetrating. 

I know some men can see anything they choose to 
see, but they won’t say anything; who are dried up at 
the source by that enemy of mankind which we call 
Caution. God save a free country from cautious men,— 
men, I mean, cautious for themselves,—for cautious 
men are men who will not speak the truth if the speak- 
ing of it threatens to damage them. Caution is the 
confidential agent of selfishness. 


90 COLLEGE AND STATE 


This man had no caution. He was absolutely direct 
and fearless. You will say that he had very little 
worldly goods to lose. He did not allow himself to be 
encumbered by riches, therefore he could say what he 
pleased. You know that men who are encumbered by 
riches are apt to be more silent than others. ‘They 
have given hostages to fortune, and for them it is very 
necessary to maintain the status quo. Now, Mr. Lin- 
coln was not embarrassed in this way. A change of 
circumstances would suit him just as well as the perma- 
nency of existing circumstances. But I am confident that 
if Mr. Lincoln had had the gift of making money, he 
nevertheless would not have restrained his gift for say- 
ing things; that he nevertheless would not have ig- 
nored the trammels and despised caution and said what 
he thought. But one interesting thing about Mr. Lin- 
coln is that no matter how shrewd or penetrating his 
comment, he never seemed to allow a matter to grip 
him. He seemed so directly in contact with it that he 
could define things other men could not define; and yet 
he was detached. He did not look upon it as if he were 
part of it. And he was constantly salting all the de- 
lightful things that he said, with the salt of wit and 
humour. 

I would not trust a saturnine man, but I would trust 
a wit; vecause a wit is a man who can detach himself, 
and not get so buried in the matter he is dealing with 
as to lose that sure and free movement which a man can 
have only when he is detached. If a man can com- 
ment upon his own misfortunes with a touch of humour, 
you know that his misfortunes are not going to subdue 
or kill him. You should try to instill into every dis- 
tressed friend the inclination to hold himself off at 
arm’s length, and should assure him that, after all, there 
have been worse cases on record. Mr. Lincoln was 
not under the impression that his own misfortunes were 
unique, and he was not under the impression that the 
misfortunes of his fellow-men were unique or unalter- 


COLLEGE AND STATE gl 


able. Therefore he was detached; therefore he was 
a wit; therefore he told you a story to show that he 
was not so intense upon a matter that he could not 
recognize the funny side of it. 

Not only that, but Lincoln was a singularly studious 
man—not studious in the ordinary conventional sense. 
To be studious in the ordinary, conventional sense, if I 
may judge by my observation at a university, is to do 
the things you have to do and not understand them 
particularly. But to be studious, in the sense in which 
Mr. Lincoln was studious, is to follow eagerly and fear- 
lessly the curiosity of a mind which will not be satisfied 
unless it understands. ‘That is a deep studiousness; 
that is the thing which lays bare the map of life and 
enables men to understand the circumstances in which 
they live, as nothing else can do. 

And what commends Mr. Lincoln’s studiousness to 
me is that the result of it was he did not have any 
theories at all. Life is a very complex thing. No the- 
ory that I ever heard propounded will match its varied 
pattern; and the men who are dangerous are the men 
who are not content with understanding, but go on to 
propound theories, things which will make a new pattern 
for society and a new model for the universe. Those 
are the men who are not to be trusted. Because, al- 
though you steer by the North Star, when you have lost 
the bearings of your compass, you nevertheless must 
steer in a pathway on the sea,—you are not bound for 
the North Star. The man who insists upon his theory 
insists that there is a way to the North Star, and I 
know, and every one knows, that there is not—at least 
none yet discovered. Lincoln was one of those de- 
lightful students who do not seek to tie you up in the 
meshes of any theory. 

Such was Mr. Lincoln,—not a singular man; a very 
normal man, but normal in gigantic proportions,—the 
whole character of him is on as great a scale—and yet 
so delightfully informal in the way it was put together 


92 COLLEGE AND STATE 


—as was the great frame in which he lived. That great, 
loose-jointed, angular frame that Mr. Lincoln inhabited 
was a very fine symbol of the big, loose-jointed, genial, 
angular nature that was inside; angular, not in the 
sense of having sharp corners upon which men might 
wound themselves, but angular as nature is angular. 
Nature is not symmetrical like the Renaissance archi- 
tecture. Nature is an architect who does not, in the 
least, mind putting a very different thing on one side 
from what it has put on the other. Your average 
architect wants to balance his windows; to have con- 
sistency and balance in the parts. But nature is not 
interested in that. Nature does what it pleases, and so 
did the nature of Lincoln. It did what it pleased, and 
was no more conventionalized and symmetrical than 
the body of the man himself. 

Mr. Lincoln belonged to a type which is fast disap- 
pearing, the type of the frontiersman. And he be- 
longed to a process which has almost disappeared from 
this country. Mr. Lincoln seemed slow in his develop- 
ment, but when you think of the really short span of 
his life and the distance he traversed in the process 
of maturing, you will see that it cannot be said to have 
been a slow process. Mr. Lincoln was bred in that 
part of the country—this part, though we can hardly 
conceive .it now—where States were made as fast as 
men. Lincoln was made along with the States that were 
growing as fast as men were. States were born and 
came to their maturity, in that day, within the legal 
limit of twenty-one years, and the very pressure of that 
rapid change, the very imperious necessity of that quick 
process of maturing, was what made and moulded men 
with a speed and in a sort which have never since been 
matched. Here were the processes of civilization and 
of the building up of polities crowded into a single 
generation; and where such processes are crowded, men 
grow. Men could be picked out in the crude, and, if 
put in that crucible, could be refined out in a single gen- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 93 


eration into pure metal. ‘That was the process which 
made Mr. Lincoln. We could not do it that way again, 
because that period has passed forever with us. 

Mr. Lincoln could not have been born at any other 
time and he could not have been made in any other 
way. I took the liberty of saying in New York the 
other day that it was inconceivable that Mr. Lincoln 
could have been born in New York. I did not intend 
thereby any disparagement of New York, but simply 
to point the moral that he could not have been born 
in a finished community. He had to be produced in a 
community that was on the make, in the making. New 
York is on the make, but it is not in the making. 

Mr. Lincoln, in other words, was produced by proc- 
esses which no longer exist anywhere in America, and 
therefore we are solemnized by this question: Can we 
have other Lincolns? We cannot do without them. 
This country is going to have crisis after crisis. God 
send they may not be bloody crises, but they will be 
intense and acute. No body politic so abounding in life 
and so puzzled by problems as ours is can avoid moving 
from crisis to crisis. We must have the leadership of 
sane, genial men of universal use like Lincoln, to save 
us from mistakes and give us the necessary leadership 
in such days of struggle and of difficulty. And yet, such 
men will hereafter have to be produced among us by 
processes which are not characteristically American, 
but which belong to the whole world. 

There was something essentially native, American, 
about Lincoln; and there will, no doubt, be something 
American about every man produced by the processes 
of America; but no such distinguished process as the 
process, unique and separate, of that early age can be 
repeated for us. 

It seems to me serviceable, therefore, to ask our- 
selves what it is that we must reproduce in order not 
to lose the breed, the splendid breed, of men of this 
calibre. Mr. Lincoln we describe as “a man of the 


94 COLLEGE AND STATE 


people,” and he was a man of the people, essentially. 


But what do we mean by a “‘man of the people’? We 
mean a man, of course, who has his rootage deep in the 
experiences and the consciousness of the ordinary mass 
of his fellow-men; but we do not mean a man whose 
rootage is holding him at their level. We mean a man 
who, drawing his sap from such sources, has, never- 
theless, risen above the level of the rest of mankind and 
has got an outlook over their heads, seeing horizons 
which they are too submerged to see; a man who finds 
and draws his inspiration from the common plane, but 
nevertheless has lifted himself to a new place of out- 
look and of insight; who has come out from the people 
and is their leader, not because he speaks from their 
ranks, but because he speaks for them and for their 
interests. 
Browning has said: 


“A Nation is but the attempt of many 

To rise to the completer life of one; 

And they who live as models for the mass 
Are singly of more value than they all.” 


Lincoln was of the mass, but he was so lifted and 
big that all men could look upon him, until he became 
the ‘model for the mass”’ and was “‘singly of more value. 
than they all.” 

It was in that sense that Lincoln was ‘‘a man of the 
people.’ His sources were where all the pure springs 
are, but his streams flowed down into other country and 
fertilized other plains, where men had become sophisti- 
cated with the life of an older age. 

A great nation is not led by a man who simply re- 
peats the talk of the street-corners or the opinions of 
the newspapers. A nation is led by a man who hears 
more than those things; or who, rather, hearing those 
things, understands them better, unites them, puts them 
into a common meaning; speaks, not the rumors of 


COLLEGE AND STATE 95 


the street, but a new principle for a new age; a man 
in whose ears the voices of the nation do not sound 
like the accidental and discordant notes that come from 
the voice of a mob, but concurrent and concordant like 
the united voices of a chorus, whose many meanings, 
spoken by melodious tongues, unite in his understanding 
in a single meaning and reveal to him a single vision, 
so that he can speak what no man else knows, the 
common meaning of the common voice. Such is the 
man who leads a great, free, democratic nation. 

We must always be led by ‘“‘men of the people,” and 
therefore it behooves us to know them when we see 
them. How shall we distinguish them? Judged by this 
man, interpreted by this life, what is a ‘‘man of the 
people’? How shall we know him when he emerges to 
our view? | 

Well, in the first place, it seems to me that a man of 
the people is a man who sees affairs as the people see 
them, and not as a man of particular classes or the pro- 
fessions sees them. You cannot afford to take the ad- 
vice of a man who has been too long submerged in a 
particular profession,—not because you cannot trust 
him to be honest and candid, but because he has been 
too long immersed and submerged, and through the in- 
evitable pressure and circumstances of his life has come 
to look upon the nation from a particular point of view. 
The man of the people is a man who looks far and wide 
upon the nation, and is not limited by a professional 
point of view. That may be a hard doctrine; it may 
exclude some gentlemen ambitious to lead; but I am 
not trying to exclude them by any arbitrary dictum of 
my own; | am trying to interpret so much as I under- 
stand of human history, and if human history has ex- 
cluded them, you cannot blame me. Human histoty has 
excluded them, as far as I understand it, and that is 
the end of the matter. I am not excluding them. In 
communities like ours, governed by general opinion and 
not led by classes, not dictated to by special interests, 


’ 


96 COLLEGE AND STATE 


they are of necessity excluded. You will see that it 
follows that a man of the people is not subdued by any 
stuff of life that he has happened to work in; that he 
is free to move in any direction his spirit prompts. Are 
you not glad that Mr. Lincoln did not succeed too 
deeply in any particular calling; that he was sufficiently 
detached to be lifted to a place of leadership and to be 
used by the whole country? Are you not glad that he 
had not narrowed his view and understanding to any 
particular interest,—did not think in the terms of in- 
terest but in the terms of life? Are you not glad that 
he had a myriad of contacts with the growing and ve- 
hement life of this country, and that, because of that 
multiple contact, he was, more than any one else of his 
generation, the spokesman of the general opinion of 
his country? 

Why was it that Mr. Lincoln was wiser than the 
professional politicians? Because the professional poli- 
ticians had burrowed into particular burrows and Mr. 
Lincoln walked on the surface and saw his fellow-men. 

Why could Mr. Lincoln smile at lawyers and turn 
away from ministers? Because he had not had his con- 
tact with life as a lawyer has, and he had not lec- 
tured his fellow-men as a minister has. He was de- 
tached from every point of view and therefore superior, 
—at any rate in a position to becoming superior,—to 
every point of view. You must have a man of this 
detachable sort. 

Moreover, you must not have a man, if he is to be 
a man of the people, who is standardized and conven- 
tionalized. Look to it that your communities, your 
great cities, do not impose too arbitrary standards upon 
the men whom you wish to use. Do not reduce men 
to standards. Let them be free. Do not compel them 
by conventions. Let them wear any clothes they please 
and look like anything they choose; let them do anything 
that a decent and an honest man may do without criti- 
cism; do not laugh at them because they do not look 


COLLEGE AND STATE 97 


like you, or talk like you, or think like you. They are 
freer for that circumstance, because, as an English 
writer has said: ‘You may talk of the tyranny of Nero 
and Tiberius, but the real tyranny is the tyranny of 
your nextldoor neighbour. There is no tyranny like the 
tyranny of being obliged to be like him,’”—of being con- 
sidered a very singular person if you are not; of having 
men shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Singular young 
man, sir, singular young man; very gifted, but not to 
be trusted.’”’ Not to be trusted because unlike your 
own trustworthy self! You must take your leaders in 
every time of difficulty from among absolutely free men 
who are not standardized and conventionalized, who 
are at liberty to do what they think right and what they 
think true; that is the only kind of leadership you can 
afford to have. 

And then, last and greatest characteristic of all, a 
man of the people is a man who has felt that unspoken, 
that intense, that almost terrifying struggle of human- 
ity, that struggle whose object is, not to get forms of 
government, not to realize particular formulas or make 
for any definite goal, but simply to live and be free. 
He has participated in that struggle; he has felt the 
blood stream against the tissue; he has known anxiety; 
he has felt that life contained for him nothing but 
effort, effort from the rising of the sun to the going 
down of it. He has, therefore, felt beat in him, if he 
had any heart, a universal sympathy for those who 
struggle, a universal understanding of the unutterable 
things that were in their hearts and the unbearable bur- 
dens that were upon their backs. A man who has that 
vision, of how— 


“Now touching good, now backward hurled, 
Toils the indomitable world”’— 


a man like Lincoln—understands. His was part of the 
toil; he had part and lot in the struggle; he knew the 


98 COLLEGE AND STATE 


uncertainty of the goal mankind had but just touched 
and from which they had been back; knew that the 
price of life is blood, and that no man who goes jauntily 
and complacently through the world will ever touch the 
springs of human action. Such a man with such a con- 
sciousness, such a universal human sympathy, such a uni- 
versal comprehension of what life means, is your man 
of the people, and no one else can be. 

What shall we do? It always seems to me a poor 
tribute to a great man who has been great in action, to 
spend the hours of his praise by merely remembering 
what he was; and there is no more futile eulogy than 
attempted imitation. It is impossible to imitate Lin- 
coln, without being Lincoln; and then it would not be 
an imitation. It is impossible to reproduce the char- 
acters, as it is impossible to reproduce the circumstances 
of a past age. ‘That ought to be a truism; that ought 
to be evident. We live, and we have no other choice, 
in this age, and the tasks of this age are the only tasks 
to which we are asked to address ourselves. We are 
not asked to apply our belated wisdom to the problems 
and perplexities of an age that is gone. We must have 
timely remedies, suitable for the existing moment. If 
that be true, the only way in which we can worthily cele- 
brate a great man is by showing to-day that we have not 
lost the tradition of force which made former ages great, 
that we can reproduce them continuously in a kind of 
our own. You elevate the character of a man like Lin- 
coln for his fellow-men to gaze upon, not as if it were 
an unattainable height, but as one of those conspicuous 
objects which men erect to mark the long lines of a 
survey, so that when they top the next hill they shall 
see that mark standing there where they have passed, 
not as something to daunt them, but as a high point 
by which they can lengthen and complete their measure- 
ments and make sure of their ultimate goal and achieve- 
ment. That is the reason we erect the figures of men 
like this to be admired and looked upon, not as if we 


COLLEGE AND STATE 99 


were men who walk backward and deplore the loss of 
such figures and of such ages, but as men who keep 
such heights in mind and walk forward, knowing that 
the goal of the age is to scale new heights and to do 
things of which their work was a mere foundation, so 
that we shall live, like every other living thing, by re- 
newal. We shall not live by recollection, we shall not 
live by trying to recall the strength of the old tissue, 
but by producing a new tissue. The process of life is a 
process of growth, and the process of growth is a proc- 
ess of renewal; and it is only in this wise that we shall 
face the tasks of the future. 

The tasks of the future call for men like Lincoln 
more audibly, more imperatively, than did the tasks of 
the time when civil war was brewing and the very ex- 
istence of the Nation was in the scale of destiny. For 
the things that perplex us at this moment are the things 
which mark, I will not say a warfare, but a division 
among classes; and when a nation begins to be divided 
into rival and contestant interests by the score, the time 
is much more dangerous than when it is divided into only 
two perfectly distinguishable interests, which you can 
discriminate and deal with. If there are only two sides 
I can easily make up my mind which side to take, but 
if there are a score of sides then I must say to some 
man who is not immersed, not submerged, not caught 
in this struggle, ‘‘Where shall I go? What do you 
see? What is the movement of the mass? Where are 
we going? Where do you propose you should go?” 
It is then I need a man of the people, detached from 
this struggle yet cognizant of it all, sympathetic with 
it all, saturated with it all, to whom I can say, ‘How 
do you sum it up, what are the signs of the day, what 
does the morning say, what are the tasks that we must 
set our hands to?” We should pray, not only that we 
should be led by such men, but also that they should 
be men of the particular sweetness that Lincoln pos- 
sessed. 


100 COLLEGE AND STATE 


The most dangerous thing you can have in an age like 
this is a man who is intense and hot. We have heat 
enough; what we want is light. Anybody can stir up 
emotions, but who is master of men enough to take the 
saddle and guide those awakened emotions? Anybody 
can cry a nation awake to the necessities of reform, but 
who shall frame the reform but a man who is cool, who 
takes his time, who will draw you aside for a jest, who 
will say: ‘Yes, but not to-day, to-morrow; let us see 
the other man and see what he has to say; let us hear 
everybody, let us know what we are to do. In the 
meantime I have a capital story for your private ear. 
Let me take the strain off, let me unbend the steel. 
Don’t let us settle this thing by fire but let us settle 
it by those cool, incandescent lights which show its real 
nature and color.” 

The most valuable thing about Mr. Lincoln was 
that in the midst of the strain of war, in the midst of 
the crash of arms, he could sit quietly in his room .and 
enjoy a book that led his thoughts off from everything 
American, could wander in fields of dreams, while every 
other man was hot with the immediate contest. Always 
set your faith in a man who can withdraw himself, be- 
cause only the man who can withdraw himself can see 
the stage; only the man who can withdraw himself can 
see affairs as they are. 

And so the lesson of this day is faith in the common 
product of the nation; the lesson of this day is the fu- 
ture as well as the past leadership of men, wise men, 
who have come from the people. We should not be 
Americans deserving to call ourselves the fellow-coun- 
trymen of Lincoln if we did not feel the compulsion 
that his example lays upon us—the compulsion, not to 
heed him merely but to look to our own duty, to live 
every day as if that were the day upon which America 
was to be reborn and remade; to attack every task as 
if we had something here that was new and virginal 
and original, out of which we could make the very stuff 


COLLEGE AND STATE IOI 


of life, by integrity, faith in our fellow-men, wherever 
it is deserved, absolute ignorance of any obstacle that 
is insuperable, patience, indomitable courage, insight, 
universal sympathy,—with that programme opening 
our hearts to every candid suggestion, listening to all 
the voices of the nation, trying to bring in a new day 
of vision and of achievement. 


THE SPIRIT OF LEARNING 


ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE PHI BETA KAPPA CHAPTER 
AT CAMBRIDGE, JULY I, 1909. FROM THE “HAR- 
VARD GRADUATES’ MAGAZINE,’’ SEPTEMBER, 1909, 
VOL. XVIII, PP. I-14. 


E have fallen of late into a deep discontent 

with the college, with the life and the work of 
the undergraduates in our universities. It is an honour- 
able discontent, bred in us by devotion, not by captious- 
ness or hostility or by an unreasonable impatience to set 
the world right. We are not critics, but anxious and 
thoughtful friends. We are neither cynics nor pes- 
simists, but honest lovers of a good thing, of whose 
slightest deterioration we are jealous. We would fain 
keep one of the finest instrumentalities of our national 
life from falling short of its best, and believe that by 
a little care and candor we can do so. 

The American college has played a unique part in 
American life. So long as its aims were definite and 
its processes authoritative it formed men who brought 
to their tasks an incomparable morale, a capacity that 
seemed more than individual, a power touched with 
large ideals. ‘The college has been the seat of ideals. 
The liberal training which it sought to impart took no 
thought of any particular profession or business, but 
was meant to reflect in its few and simple disciplines 
the image of life and thought. Men were bred by it 
to no skill or craft or calling: the discipline to which 
they were subjected had a more general object. It was 
meant to prepare them for the whole of life rather 

102 


COLLEGE AND STATE 103 


than for some particular part of it. The ideals which 
lay at its heart were the general ideals of conduct, of 
right living, and right thinking, which made them aware 
of a world moralized by principle, steadied and cleared 
of many an evil thing by true and catholic reflection and 
just feeling, a world, not of interests, but of ideas. 

Such impressions, such challenges to a man’s spirit, 
such intimations of privilege and duty are not to be 
found in the work and obligations of professional and 
technical schools. They cannot be. Every calling has 
its ethics, indeed, its standards of right conduct and 
wrong, its outlook upon action and upon the varied re- 
lationships of society. Its work is high and honorable, 
grounded, it may be, in the exact knowledge which mor- 
alizes the processes of thought, and in a skill which 
makes the whole man serviceable. But it is notorious 
how deep and how narrow the absorptions of the pro- 
fessional school are and how much they are necessarily 
concentrated upon the methods and interests of a par- 
ticular occupation. ‘he work to be done in them is as 
exact, as definite, as exclusive as that of the office and 
the shop. Their atmosphere is the atmosphere of busi- 
ness, and should be. It does not beget generous com- 
radeships or any ardor of altruistic feeling such as the 
college begets. It does not contain that general air of 
the world of science and of letters in which the mind 
seeks no special interest, but feels every intimate im- 
pulse of the spirit set free to think and observe and lis- 
ten,—listen to all the voices of the mind. ‘The profes- 
sional school differs from the college as middle age dif- 
fers from youth. It gets the spirit of the college only by 
imitation or reminiscence or contagion. ‘This is to say 
nothing to its discredit. Its nature and objects are dif- 
ferent from those of the college,—as legitimate, as use- 
ful, as necessary; but different. The college is the place 
of orientation; the professional school is the place of 
concentration. The object of the college is to liberalize 


104. COLLEGE AND STATE 


and moralize; the object of the professional school is to 
train the powers to a special task. And this is true 
of all vocational study. 

I am, of course, using the words liberalize and moral- 
ize in their broadest significance, and [ am very well 
aware that I am speaking in the terms of an ideal, a 
conception, rather than in the terms of realized fact. I 
have spoken, too, of what the college did ‘‘so long as 
its aims were definite and its processes authoritative,” 
as if I were thinking of it wholly in the past tense and 
wished to intimate that it was once a very effective and 
ideal thing but had now ceased to exist; so that one 
would suppose that I thought the college lost out of our 
life and the present a time when such influences were 
all to seek. But that is only because I have not been 
able to say everything at once. Give me leave, and I 
will slowly write in the phrases which will correct these 
impressions and bring a true picture to light. 

The college has lost its definiteness of aim, and has 
now for so long a time affected to be too modest to as- 
sert its authority over its pupils in any matter of pre- 
scribed study that it can no longer claim to be the nur- 
turing mother it once was; but the college is neither 
dead nor moribund, and it has made up for its relaxed 
discipline and confused plans of study by many notable 
gains, which, if they have not improved its scholarship, 
have improved the health and the practical morals of 
the young gentlemen who resort to it, have enhanced 
their vigor and quickened their whole natures. A freer 
choice of studies has imparted to it a stir, an air of free- 
dom and individual initiative, a wealth and variety of 
instruction which the old college altogether lacked. The 
development of athletic sports and the immoderate ad- 
diction of undergraduates to stimulating activities of 
all sorts, academic and unacademic, which improve their 
physical habits, fill their lives with interesting objects, 
sometimes important, and challenge their powers of 
organization and practical management, have unques- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 105, 


tionably raised the tone of morals and of conduct in our 
colleges and have given them an interesting, perhaps 
valuable, connection with modern society and the 
broader popular interests of the day. No one need re- 
gret the breaking-up of the dead levels of the old col- 
lege, the introduction and exaltation of modern studies, 
or the general quickening of life which has made of our 
youngsters more manly fellows, if less docile pupils. 
There had come to be something rather narrow and dull 
and morbid, no doubt, about the old college before its 
day was over. If we gain our advances by excessive 
reactions and changes which change too much, we at 
least gain them, and should be careful not to lose the 
advantage of them. 

Nevertheless, the evident fact is, that we have now 
for a long generation devoted ourselves to promoting 
changes which have resulted in all but complete dis- 
organization, and it is our plain and immediate duty 
to form our plans for reorganization. We must reéx- 
amine the college, reconceive it, reorganize it. It is 
the root of our intellectual life as a nation. It is not 
only the instrumentality through which we must effect 
all the broad preliminary work which underlies sound 
scholarship; it is also our chief instrumentality of catho- 
lic enlightenment, our chief means for giving wide- 
spread stimulation to the whole intellectual life of the 
country and supplying ourselves with men who shall both 
comprehend their age and duty and know how to serve 
them supremely well. Without the American college 
our young men would be too exclusively shut in to the 
pursuit of individual interests, would lose the vital con- 
tacts and emulations which awaken them to those larger 
achievements and sacrifices which are the highest ob- 
jects of education in a country of free citizens, where 
the welfare of the commonwealth springs out of the 
character and the informed purposes of the private citi- 
zen. The college will be found to lie somewhere very 


106 COLLEGE AND STATE 


near the heart of American social training and intel- 
lectual and moral enlightenment. 

The process is familiar to every one by which ‘the 
disintegration was brought about which destroyed the 
old college with its fixed disciplines and ordered life and 
gave us our present problem of reorganization and re- 
covery. It centred in the break-up of the old curriculum 
and the introduction of the principle that the student 
was to select his own studies from a great variety of 
courses, as great a variety as the resources of the college 
and the supply of teachers available made possible. But 
the change could not in the nature of things stop with 
the plan of study. It held at its heart a tremendous 
implication: the implication of full manhood on the 
part of the pupil, and all the untrammelled choices of 
manhood. The pupil who was mature and well in- 
formed enough to study what he chose was also by nec- 
essary implication mature enough to be left free to do 
what he pleased, to choose his own associations and 
ways of life outside the curriculum without restraint or 
suggestion; and the varied, absorbing college life of 
our day sprang up as the natural offspring of the free 
election of studies. 

There went along with the relaxation of rule as to 
what undergraduates should study, therefore, an almost 
absolute divorce between the studies and the life of 
the college, its business and its actual daily occupations. 
The teacher ceased to look upon himself as related in 
any responsible way to the life of his pupils, to what 
they should be doing and thinking of between one class 
exercise and another, and conceived his whole duty to 
have been performed when he had given his lecture and 
afforded those who were appointed to come the oppor- 
tunity to hear and heed it if they chose. The teachers of 
this new régime, moreover, were most of them trained 
for their teaching work in German universities, or in 
American universities in which the methods, the points 
of view, the spirit, and the object of the German uni- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 107 


versities were, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced. 
They think of their pupils, therefore, as men already 
disciplined by some general training such as the Ger- 
man gymnasium gives, and seeking in the university spe- 
cial acquaintance with particular studies, as an intro- 
duction to special fields of information and inquiry. 
They have never thought of the university as a com- 
munity of teachers and pupils: they think of it, rather, 
as a body of teachers and investigators to whom those 
may resort who seriously desire specialized kinds of 
knowledge. ‘They are specialists imported into an 
American system which has lost its old point of view 
and found no new one suitable to the needs and circum- 
stances of America. ‘They do not think of living with 
their pupils and affording them the contacts of culture; 
they are only accessible to them at stated periods and 
for a definite and limited service; and their teaching is 
an interruption to their favorite work of research. 
Meanwhile, the constituency of the college has wholly 
changed. It is not only the bookish classes who now 
send their sons to college, but also the men of business 
and of affairs, who expect their sons to follow in their 
own footsteps and do work with which books have little 
connection. In the old days of which I have spoken 
most young men who went to college expected to enter 
one or other of the learned professions, expected to have 
to do with books and some of the more serious kinds of 
learning all their lives. Books were their proper intro- 
duction to the work that lay before them; learning was 
their natural discipline and preparation. But nowadays 
the men who are looking forward to the learned profes- 
sions are in a minority at the college. Most under- 
graduates come out of an atmosphere of business and 
wish a breeding which is consonant with it. They do 
not wish learning. They wish only a certain freshening 
of their faculties for the miscellaneous contacts of life, 
a general acquaintance with what men are doing and 
saying in their own generation, a certain facility in han- 


108 COLLEGE AND STATE 


dling themselves and in getting on with their fellows. 
They are much more interested in the incidental asso- 
ciations of college life than in the main intellectual occu- 
pations of the place. They want to be made men of, 
not scholars; and the life led at college is as serviceable 
for that as any of the tasks set in the class-room. If 
they want what the formal teaching offers them at all, 
it is for some definite and practical purpose connected 
with the calling they expect to follow, the business they 
expect to engage in. Such pupils are specially unsuitable 
for such teachers. 

Here, then, is our situation. Here is the little world 
of teachers and pupils, athletic associations, musical and 
literary clubs, social organizations and societies for 
amusement, class-room and playground, of which we 
must make analysis, out of which we must get a new 
synthesis, a definite aim, and new processes of authori- 
tative direction, losing nothing that has been gained, re- 
covering what has been lost. All the fresh elements we 
have gained are valuable, many of the new points of 
view are those from which we must look upon the whole 
task and function of the college if we would see it 
truly; but we have fallen upon an almost hopeless con- 
fusion and an utter dispersion of energy. We must pull 
the whole inorganic thing together under a new concep- 
tion of what the college must be and do. 

The chief and characteristic mistake which the teach- 
ers and governors of our colleges have made in these 
latter days has been that they have devoted themselves 
and their plans too exclusively to the business, the very 
commonplace business, of instruction, to well-conceived 
lectures and approved class-room method, and have not 
enough regarded the life of the mind. The mind does 
not live by instruction. It is no prolix gut to be stuffed. 
The real intellectual life of a body of undergraduates, 
if there be any, manifests itself, not in the class-room, 
but in what they do and talk of and set before them- 
selves as their favorite objects between classes and lec- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 109 


tures. You will see the true life of a college in the 
evenings, at the dinner-table or beside the fire in the 
groups that gather and the men that go off eagerly to 
their work, where youths get together and let themselves 
go upon their favorite themes,—in the effect their 
studies have upon them when no compulsion of any kind 
is on them and they are not thinking to be called to a 
reckoning of what they know. 

The effects of learning are its real tests, the real 
tests alike of its validity and of its eficacy. The mind 
can be driven, but that is not life. Life is voluntary or 
unconscious. It is breathed in out of a sustaining atmos- 
phere. It is shaped by environment. It is habitual, con- 
tinuous, productive. It does not consist in tasks per- 
formed, but in powers gained and enhanced. It cannot 
be communicated in class-rooms if its aim and end is the 
class-room. Instruction is not its source, but only its 
incidental means and medium. 

Here is the key to the whole matter: the object of . 
the college, as we have known and used and loved it in 
America, is not scholarship (except for the few, and 
for them only by way of introduction and first orienta- 
tion), but the intellectual and spiritual life. Its life and - 
discipline are meant to be a process of preparation, not 
a process of information. By the intellectual and spir- 
itual life I mean the life which enables the mind to com- 
prehend and make proper use of the modern world and 
all its opportunities. The object of a liberal training 
is not learning, but discipline and the enlightenment of 
the mind. The educated man is to be discovered by his 
point of view, by the temper of his mind, by his atti- 
tude towards life and his fair way of thinking. He can 
see, he can discriminate, he can combine ideas and per- 
ceive whither they lead; he has insight and comprehen- 
sion. His mind is a practised instrument of apprecia- 
tion. He is more apt to contribute light than heat to a 
discussion, and will oftener than another show the 
power of uniting the elements of a difficult subject in 


110 COLLEGE AND STATE 


a whole view; he has the knowledge of the world which 
no one can have who knows only his own generation or 
only his own task. 

What we should seek to impart in our colleges, there- 
fore, is not so much learning itself as the spirit of learn- 
ing. You can impart that to young men; and you can 
impart it to them in the three or four years at your 
disposal. It consists in the power to distinguish good 
reasoning from bad, in the power to digest and inter- 
pret evidence, in a habit of catholic observation and a 
preference for the non-partisan point of view, in an ad- 
diction to clear and logical processes of thought and yet 
an instinctive desire to interpret rather than to stick in 
the letter of the reasoning, in a taste for knowledge 
and a deep respect for the integrity of the human mind. 
It is citizenship of the world of knowledge, but not own- 
ership of it. Scholars are the owners of its varied plots, 
in severalty. 

If we recognize and accept these ideas, this concep- 
tion of the function and the possibilities of the college, 
there is hope of a general understanding and accommo- 
dation. At present there is a fundamental misunder- 
standing. ‘The teachers in our colleges are men of 
learning and conceive it their duty to impart learning; 
but their pupils do not desire it, and the parents of 
their pupils do not desire it for them. They desire 
something else which the teacher has little thought of 
giving, generally thinks it no part of his function to give. 
Many of the parents of our modern undergraduates 
will frankly tell you that what they want for their sons 
is not so much what they will get in the class-room as 
something else, which they are at a loss to define, which 
they will get from the associations of college life: and 
many more would say the same thing if they were equally 
ingenuous. I know what they mean, and I am free to 
say that I sympathize with them. They understand 
that all that their boys get in the class-room is instruc- 
tion in certain definite bodies of knowledge; that all they 


COLLEGE AND STATE III 


are expected to bring away from their lectures and reci- 
tations is items of learning. ‘They have consorted with 
college men, if they are not college bred themselves, and 
know how very soon items of knowledge slip away 
from them, no matter how faithful and diligent they 
may have been in accumulating them when they were 
students. [hey observe that that part of the college 
acquisition is very soon lost. College graduates will 
tell you without shame or regret, within ten years of 
their graduation, that they remember practically noth- 
ing of what they learned in the class-room; and yet in 
the very same breath they will tell you that they would 
not have lost what they did get in college for anything 
in the world; and men who did not have the chance to 
go to college will everywhere be found to envy them, 
perceiving that college-bred men have something which 
they have not. What have they got, if learning is to 
be left out of the reckoning? ‘They have got manli- 
ness, certainly, esprit de corps, the training of generous 
comradeships, a notable development of their social 
faculties and of their powers of appreciation; and they 
have lived under the influence of mental tasks of greater 
or less difficulty, have got from the class-room itself, 
from a quiet teacher here and there, some intimation, 
some touch of the spirit of learning. If they have not, 
they have got only what could no doubt be got from as- 
sociation with generous, self-respecting young men any- 
where. Attendance on the exercises of the college was 
only a means of keeping them together for four years, to 
work out their comradeships and their mutual infections. 

I said just now that I sympathized with men who said 
that what they wanted for their sons in college was not 
what they got in the class-room so much as what they 
got from the life and associations of the place; but I 
agree with them only if what is to be got in the class- 
room is nothing more than items of knowledge likely 
to be quickly lost hold of. I agree with them; but I see 
clearly what they are blindly feeling after. ‘They should 


112 COLLEGE AND STATE 


desire chiefly what their sons are to get out of the life 
and associations of the place; but that life and those 
associations should be freighted with things they do not 
now contain. ‘The processes of life, the contagions of 
association, are the only things that have ever got any 
real or permanent hold on men’s minds. These are the 
conducting media for every effect we seek to work on 
the human spirit. The undergraduate should have 
scholars for teachers. ‘They should hold his attention 
steadily upon great tested bodies of knowledge and 
should insist that he make himself acquainted with them, 
if only for the nonce. But they will give him nothing 
he is likely to carry with him through life if they stop 
with formal instruction, however thorough or exacting 
they may make it. ‘Their permanent effects will be 
wrought upon his spirit. ‘Their teaching will follow 
him through life only if they reveal to him the meaning, 
the significance, the essential validity of what they are 
about, the motives which prompt it, the processes which 
verify it. They will rule him, not by what they know 
and inform him of, but by the spirit of the things they 
expound. And that spirit they cannot convey in any 
formal manner. They can convey it only atmospher- 
ically, by making their ideals tell in some way upon the 
whole spirit of the place. 

How shall their pupils carry their spirit away with 
them, or the spirit of the things they teach, if beyond 
the door of the class-room the atmosphere will not con- 
tain it? College is a place of initiation. Its effects are 
atmospheric. They are wrought by impression, by as- 
sociation, by emulation. The voices which do not pene- 
trate beyond the doors of the class-room are lost, are 
ineffectual, are void of consequence and power. No 
thought will obtain or live there for the transmission 
of which the prevailing atmosphere is a non-conducting 
medium. If young gentlemen get from their years at 
college only manliness, esprit de corps, a release of their 
social gifts, a training in give and take, a catholic taste 


COLLEGE AND STATE 113 


in men, and the standards of true sportsmen, they have 
gained much, but they have not gained what a college 
should give them. It should give them insight into the 
things of the mind and of the spirit, a sense of having 
lived and formed their friendships amidst the gardens 
of the mind where grows the tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil, a consciousness of having taken on 
them the vows of true enlightenment and of having un- 
dergone the discipline, never to be shaken off, of those 
who seek wisdom in candor, with faithful labour and 
travail of spirit. 

These things they cannot get from the class-room 
unless the spirit of the class-room is the spirit of the 
place as well and of its life; and that will never be until 
the teacher comes out of the class-room and makes him- 
self a part of that life. Contact, companionship, fa- 
miliar intercourse is the law of life for the mind. The 
comradeships of undergraduates will never breed the 
spirit of learning. The circle must be widened. It 
must include the older men, the teachers, the men for 
whom life has grown more serious and to whom it has 
revealed more of its meanings. So long as instruction 
and life do not merge in our colleges, so long as what 
the undergraduates do and what they are taught occupy 
two separate, air-tight compartments in their conscious- 
ness, so long will the college be ineffectual. 

Looked at from the point of view at which I stand 
in all that I have been saying, some of the proposals 
made in our day for the improvement of the college 
seem very strangely conceived. It has been proposed, 
for example, to shorten the period of general study in 
college to (say) two years, and let the student who has 
gone the distance our present sophomores have gone 
enter at once upon his professional studies or receive 
his certificate of graduation. [ take it for granted that 
those who have formulated this proposal never really 
knew a sophomore in the flesh. ‘They say, simply, that 
the studies of our present sophomores are as advanced 


114 COLLEGE AND STATE 


as the studies of seniors were in the great days of our 
grandfathers, and that most of our present sophomores 
are as old as our grandfathers were when they graduated 
from the pristine college we so often boast of; and I 
dare say that is all true enough. But what they do not 
know is, that our sophomore is at the age of twenty no 
more mature than the sophomore of that previous gen- 
eration was at the age of seventeen or eighteen. The 
sap of manhood is rising in him but it has not yet 
reached his head. It is not what a man is studying that 
makes him a sophomore or a senior: it is the stage the 
college process has reached in him. A college, the 
American college, is not a body of studies: it is a proc- 
ess of development. It takes, if our observation can 
be trusted, at least four years for the completion of 
that process, and all four of those years must be col- 
lege years. They cannot be school years: they cannot 
be combined with school years. ‘The school process is 
an entirely different one. ‘The college is a process of 
slow evolution from the schoolboy and the schoolboy’s 
mental attitude into the man and his entirely altered 
view of the world. It can be accomplished only in the 
college environment. ‘The environment is of the essence 
of the whole effect. 

If you wish to create a college, therefore, and are 
wise, you will seek to create a life. We have allowed 
ourselves to grow very anxious and to feel very helpless 
about college athletics. They play too large a part in 
the life of the undergraduate, we say; and no doubt they 
do. ‘There are many other things which play too large 
a part in that life, to the exclusion of intellectual inter- 
ests and the dissipation of much excellent energy: amuse- 
ments of all kinds, social preoccupations of the most 
absorbing sort, a multitude of activities which have noth- 
ing whatever to do with the discipline and enlightenment 
of the mind. But that is because they are left a free 
field. Life, at college, is one thing, the work of the 
college another, entirely separate and distinct. The life 


COLLEGE AND STATE 115 


is the field that is left free for athletics not only, but 
also for every other amusement and diversion. Studies 
are no part of that life, and there is no competition. 
Study is the work which interrupts the life, introduces 
an embarrassing and inconsistent element into it. The 
faculty has no part in the life; it organizes the inter- 
ruption, the interference. 

This is not to say that there are not a great many 
undergraduates seriously interested in study, or that it 
is impossible or even difficult to make the majority of 
them, the large majority, pass the tests of the examina- 
tions. It is only saying that the studies do not spring 
out of the life of the place and are hindered by it, must 
resist its influences if they would flourish. I have no 
jealousy of athletics: it has put wholesome spirit into 
both the physical and the mental life of our undergrad- 
uates. There are fewer morbid boys in the new college 
which we know than there were in the old college which 
our fathers knew; and fewer prigs, too, no doubt. 
Athletics are indispensable to the normal life of young 
men, and are in themselves wholesome and delightful, 
besides. In another atmosphere, the atmosphere of 
learning, they could be easily subordinated and assim- 
ilated. ‘The reason they cannot be now is that there is 
nothing to assimilate them, nothing by which they can 
be digested. They make their own atmosphere unmo- 
lested. ‘There is no direct competition. 

The same thing may be said, for it is true, of all the 
other amusements and all the social activities of the 
little college world. Their name is legion: they are 
very interesting; most of them are in themselves quite 
innocent and legitimate; many of them are thoroughly 
worth while. They now engross the attention and ab- 
sorb the energies of most of the finest, most spirited, 
most gifted youngsters in the undergraduate body, men 
fit to be scholars and masters in many fields, and for 
whom these small things are too trivial a preparation. 
They would not do so if other things which would be 


116 COLLEGE AND STATE 


certain to grip these very men were in competition with 
them, were known and spoken of and pervasive in the 
life of the college outside the class-room; but they are 
not. The field is clear for all these little activities, 
as it is clear for athletics. Athletics has no serious com- 
petitor except these amusements and petty engrossments ; 
they have no serious competitor except athletics. ‘The 
scholar is not in the game. He keeps modestly to his 
class-room and his study and must be looked up and 
asked questions if you would know what he is thinking 
about. His influence can be set going only by the delib- 
erate effort of the undergraduate himself who looks 
him up and stirs him. He deplores athletics and all the 
other absorbing and non-academic pursuits which he 
sees drawing the attention of his pupils off from study 
and serious preparation for life, but he will not enter 
into competition with them. He has never dreamed of 
such a thing; and, to tell the truth, the life of the place 
is organized in such a way as to make it hardly possible 
for him to do so. He is therefore withdrawn and in- 
effectual. 

It is the duty of university authorities to make of the 
college a society, of which the teacher will be as much, 
and as naturally, a member as the undergraduate. When 
that is done other things will fall into their natural 
places, their natural relations. Young men are capable 
of great enthusiasms for older men whom they have 
learned to know in some human, unartificial way, whose 
quality they have tasted in unconstrained conversation, 
the energy and beauty of whose characters and aims they 
have learned to appreciate by personal contact; and such 
enthusiasms are often amongst the strongest and most 
lasting influences of their lives. You will not gain the 
affection of your pupil by anything you do for him, im- 
personally, in the class-room. You may gain his admira- 
tion and vague appreciation, but he will tie to you only 
for what you have shown him personally or given him 
in intimate and friendly service. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 117 


Certain I am that it is impossible to rid our colleges 
of these things that compete with study and drive out 
the spirit of learning by the simple device of legislation, 
in which, as Americans, we have so childish a confidence ; 
or, at least, that, if we did succeed in driving them out, 
did set our home in order and sweep and garnish it, other 
equally distracting occupants would crowd in to take 
their places. For the house would be empty. ‘There 
must be life as well as study. The question is, not 
of what are we to empty it, but with what must we fill 
it? We must fill it with the things of the mind and of 
the spirit; and that we can do by introducing into it 
men for whom these things are supremely interesting, the 
main objects of life and endeavour, teachers who will 
not seem pedagogues but friends, and who can by the 
gentle infection of friendliness make thought a general 
cantagion. Do that; create the atmosphere and the 
contacts of a society made up of men young and old, 
mature and adolescent, serious and gay, and you will 
create an emulation, a saturation, a vital union of parts 
in a common life, in which all questions of subordination 
and proportion will solve themselves. So soon as the 
things which now dissipate and distract and dissolve our 
college life feel the things which should codrdinate and 
regulate and inspire it in direct contact with them, feel 
their ardour and their competition, they will fall into 
their proper places, will become pleasures and cease to 
be occupations, will delight our undergraduate days, 
but not monopolize them. ‘They are exaggerated now 
because they are separated and do not exchange impulses 
with those greater things of whose presence they are 
sometimes hardly conscious. 

No doubt there are many ways in which this vital 
association may be effected, but all wise and successful 
ways will have this in common, that they will abate 
nothing of the freedom and self-government which have 
so quickened and purified our colleges in these recent 
days of change, will have no touch of school surveillance 


118 COLLEGE AND STATE 


in them. You cannot force companionships upon under- 
graduates, if you treat them like men. You can only 
create the conditions, set up the organization, which will 
make them natural. ‘The scholar should not need a 
statute behind him. ‘The spirit of learning should not 
covet the support of the spirit and organization of the 
nursery. It will prevail of its own grace and power if 
you will but give it a chance, a conducting medium, an 
air in which it can move and breathe freely without 
effort of self-consciousness. If it cannot, I, for one, 
am willing to lend it artificial assistance. It must take 
its chances in the competition and win on its merits, 
under the ordinary rules of the game of life, where the 
most interesting man attracts attention, the strongest 
personality rules, the best organized force predominates, 
the most admirable thing wins allegiance. We are not 
seeking to force a marriage between knowledge and 
pleasure; we are simply trying to throw them a great 
deal together in the confidence that they will fall in love 
with one another. We are seeking to expose the under- 
graduate when he is most susceptible to the best and 
most stimulating influences of the university in the hope 
and belief that no sensible fellow fit for a career can 
resist the infection. 

My plea, then, is this: that we now deliberately set 
ourselves to make a home for the spirit of learning: 
that we reorganize our colleges on the lines of this 
simple conception, that a college is not only a body of 
studies but a mode of association; that its courses are 
only its formal side, its contacts and contagions its 
realities. It must become a community of scholars and 
pupils,—a free community but a very real one, in which 
democracy may work its reasonable triumphs of accom- 
modation, its vital processes of union. I am not sug- 
gesting that young men be dragooned into becoming 
scholars or tempted to become pedants, or have any 
artificial compulsion whatever put upon them, but only 
that they be introduced into the high society of univer- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 119 


sity ideals, be exposed to the hazards of stimulating 
friendships, be introduced into the easy comradeships 
of the republic of letters. By this means the class-room 
itself might some day come to seem a part of life. 


THE TARIFF MAKE-BELIEVE. 


FROM THE “NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,” OCTOBER, 1909, 
VOL. CXC, PP. 535-556. 


ae wrong settlement of a great public question 1s 
no settlement at all. The Payne-Aldrich tariff bill, 
therefore, which its authors would fain regard as a set- 
tlement of the tariff question, is no settlement at all. It 
is miscellaneously wrong in detail and radically wrong 
in principle. It disturbs more than it settles, and by 
its very failure to settle forces the tariff question for- 
ward into a new and much more acute stage. 

It is so obviously impossible to settle the question 
satisfactorily in the way these gentlemen have attempted 
to settle it; it is so evident that men of their mind and 
with their attitude towards the economic interests of 
the country can never settle it that thinking men of 
every kind realize at last that new men and new prin- 
ciples of action must be found. ‘These gentlemen do not 
know the way and cannot find it. They ‘revised’ the 
tariff, indeed, but by a method which was a grand make- 
believe from beginning to end. They may have con- 
vinced themselves of the intelligence and integrity of 
the process, but they have convinced nobody else. The 
country must now go to the bottom of the matter and 
obtain what it wants. 

It has gone to the bottom of it at some points already, 
and the process will be carried very far before it is 
through with it. In the first place, it is the general opin- 
ion throughout the country that this particular revision 
was chiefly pretense, and that it is the first time that we 
have had tariff legislation of this kind. The McKinley 
tariff bill and the Dingley tariff bill, whatever may be 


120 


COLLEGE AND STATE 121 


thought of their wisdom or of their validity as acts of 
statesmanship, were unquestionably frank and genuine. 
There was no concealment or make-believe about either 
their purpose or their character. No doubt many things 
were accomplished by them of which the public knew 
nothing and was intended to know nothing. Not all 
the advantages gained by this, that or the other indus- 
try from legislation of that kind could be explained to 
the public without creating inconvenient comment and 
startling questions that might cut very deep; but that is 
true of all legislation which is meant to give particular 
classes of citizens a special economic assistance or ad- 
vantage. Private favours will inevitably creep in. But 
no one was deceived. The men who put those measures 
through had no doubt that they had the support of the 
country in doing so. They gave the country what they 
thought opinion would sustain: gave it what they hon- 
estly supposed that it wanted. But no one who is capa- 
ble of assessing opinion now can possibly claim that 
that is what the men who were behind the Payne-Aldrich. 
legislation did. ‘They knew that they were not giving 
the country what it wanted, and the more thoughtful and 
statesmanlike among them deeply regretted that they 
could not. ‘There was a process almost of haphazard in 
the construction of the House bill, and mere false leader- 
ship and chicanery produced the bill which the Senate 
substituted for it and which largely prevailed in confer- 
ence. 

The methods by which tariff bills are constructed have 
now become all too familiar and throw a significant light 
on the character of the legislation involved. Debate 
in the Houses has little or nothing to do with it. The - 
process by which such a bill is made is private, not pub- 
lic; because the reasons which underlie many of the 
rates imposed are private. ‘The stronger faction of the 
Ways and Means Committee of the House makes up 
the preliminary bill, with the assistance of ‘“experts”’ 
whom it permits the industries most concerned to supply 


122 COLLEGE AND STATE 


for its guidance. ‘The controlling members of the com- 
mittee also determine what amendments, if any, shall 
be accepted, either from the minority faction of the 
committee or from the House itself. It permits itself 
to be dictated to, if at all, only by the imperative action 
of a party caucus. The stronger faction of the Finance 
Committee of the Senate, in like fashion, frames the bill 
which it intends to substitute for the one sent up from 
the House. It is often to be found at work on it before 
any bill reaches it from the popular chamber. ‘The 
compromise between the two measures is arranged in 
private conference by conferees drawn from the two 
committees. What takes place in the committees and in 
the conference is confidential. It is considered imperti- 
nent for reporters to inquire. It is admitted to be the 
business of the manufacturers concerned, but not the 
business of the public, who are to pay the rates. The 
debates which the country is invited to hear in the open 
sessions of the Houses are merely formal. They detér- 
mine nothing and disclose very little. 

It is the policy of silence and secrecy, indeed, with 
regard to the whole process that makes it absolutely 
inconsistent with every standard of public duty and po- 
litical integrity. If the newspapers published and the 
public read even the debates, empty of significance as 
they generally are, the entire country would presently 
realize how flagrant the whole make-believe is. The 
committees under whose guidance the bills are put 
through the House disclose nothing that is not wrung 
from them by members who have made investigations 
of their own and who insist upon having their questions 
answered; and there are few enough who have the 
audacity or take the trouble. But here and there a fact 
is dragged out, and before the encounters of debate 
are over enough has been brought to the light to make 
extremely instructive reading. It is devoutly to be 
wished,—merely to cite examples,—that every voter in 
the United States had read, or would yet read, the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 123 


debates in the Senate on the duty on electric carbons,— 
the carbons used in the arc-lights in all our cities,— 
and on the duty on razors. Every detail is a commen- 
tary on the whole depressing business. 

One extraordinary circumstance of the debates in the 
Senate should receive more than a passing allusion. 
The Republican party platform had promised that the 
tariff rates should be revised and that the standard of re- 
vision should be the differences between the cost of 
producing the various articles affected in this country 
and in the countries with which our manufacturers 
compete. One of our chief industrial competitors is 
now Germany, with its extraordinary skill in manufac- 
ture and the handicrafts and its formidable sagacity in 
foreign trade; and the Department of State, in order 
to enable Congress the more intelligently to fulfill the 
promises of the party, had, at the suggestion of the 
President, requested the German Government to fur- 
nish it with as full information as possible about the 
rates of wages paid in the leading industries in that 
country,—wages being known, of course, to be one of 
the largest items in the cost of production. The Ger- 
man Government of course complied, with its usual 
courtesy and thoroughness, transmitting an interesting 
report, each portion of which was properly authenticated 
and vouched for. The Department of State placed it 
at the disposal of the Finance Committee of the Senate. 
But Senators tried in vain to ascertain what it contained. 
Mr. Aldrich spoke of it contemptuously as ‘‘anony- 
mous,”’ which of course it was not, as “unofficial,” and 
even as an impertinent attempt, on the part of the Ger- 
man Government, to influence our tariff legislation. It 
was only too plain that the contents of the report made 
the members of the controlling faction of the Finance 
Committee very uncomfortable indeed. It undoubtedly 
showed, what independent private inquiries readily 
enough confirm, that the wages paid to skilled laborers 
in Germany are practically as great as those paid in the 


124 COLLEGE AND STATE 


United States, the difference in the cost of living in the 
two countries being taken into consideration. ‘To have 
made it public would have been to upset half the argu- 
ments for the rates proposed with which the committee 
had been misinforming the country. It would no doubt 
have explained, for example, why the skilled grinders 
of Solingen do not think it worth their while to emigrate 
to America and oblige almost all razor-makers in other. 
countries to send their blades to them to be ground,— 
and many another matter left studiously undebated, un- 
explained, about which Senators had been asking for 
information. It would have proved that the leaders 
of the party were deliberately breaking its promise to 
the country. It was, therefore, thrown into a pigeon- 
hole and disregarded. It was a private document. 

In pursuance of the same policy of secrecy and private 
management, the bill was filled with what those who dis- 
covered them were good-natured or cynical enough to 
call “‘jokers,”—-clauses whose meaning did not lie upon 
the surface, whose language was meant not to disclose 
its meaning to the members of the Houses who were 
to be asked to enact them into law, but only to those 
by whom the law was to be administered after its enact- 
ment. ‘This was one of the uses to which the “‘experts”’ 
were put whom the committees encouraged to advise 
them. They knew the technical words under which 
meanings could be hidden, or the apparently harmless 
words which had a chance to go unnoted or unchal- 
lenged. Electric carbons had been taxed at ninety cents 
per hundred; the new bill taxed them at seventy cents 
per hundred feet,—an apparent reduction if the word 
feet went unchallenged. It came very near escaping the 
attention of the Senate, and did quite escape the atten- 
tion of the general public, who paid no attention at all 
to the debates, that the addition of the word feet almost 
doubled the existing duty. 

The hugest practical joke of the whole bill lay in the 
so-called maximum and minimum clause. The schedules 


COLLEGE AND STATE 12.5 


as they were detailed in the bill and presented to the 
country, through the committees and the newspapers,— 
the schedules by which it was made believe that the . 
promise to the country of a “downward”’ revision was 
being kept by those responsible for the bill, were only 
the minimum schedules. There lay at the back of the 
measure a maximum provision about which very little 
was said, but the weight of which the country may come 
to feel as a very serious and vexatious burden in the 
months to come. In the case of articles imported from 
countries whose tariff arrangements discriminate 
against the United States, the duties are to be put at a 
maximum which is virtually prohibitive. The clause is 
a huge threat. Self-respecting countries do not yield to 
threats or to “impertinent efforts, on the part of other 
Governments, to affect their tariff legislation.”” Where 
the threat is not heeded we shall pay heavier duties than 
ever, heavier duties than any previous Congress ever 
dared impose. 

When it is added that not the least attempt was 
made to alter the duties on sugar by which every table 
in the country is taxed for the benefit of the Sugar Trust, 
but just now convicted of criminal practices in defraud- 
ing the Government in this very matter; that increased 
rates were laid on certain classes of cotton goods for 
the benefit, chiefly, of the manufacturers of New Eng- 
land, from which the dominant party always counts upon 
getting votes, and that the demand of the South, from 
which it does not expect to get them, for free cotton 
bagging was ignored; that the rates on wool and woollen 
goods, a tax which falls directly upon the clothing of the 
whole population of the country, were maintained un- 
altered; and that relief was granted at only one or two 
points,—by conceding free hides and almost free iron 
ore, for example,—upon which public opinion had been 
long and anxiously concentrated; and granted only at 
the last moment upon the earnest solicitation of the 
President,—nothing more need be said to demonstrate 


126 COLLEGE AND STATE 


the insincerity, the uncandid, designing, unpatriotic char- 
acter of the whole process. It was not intended for 
the public good. It was intended for the benefit of the 
interests most directly and selfishly concerned. 

There was noticeable confusion in the counsels of the 
dominant party. Some said this, some said that. Many 
were anxious, probably a majority in the House, to ful- 
fill in entire good faith the promise their party conven- 
tion had given in its platform and the President had 
so frankly interpreted and repeated; others were will- 
ing, some were eager, to evade it. Their leaders led 
them by the way of evasion. I do not know whether 
they were conscious of doing so or not. It need make 
no difference to the country whether they were or not: 
it is only the fact that interests it, however the fact may 
affect individuals. If the leaders of the Republican 
party were not aware that they were seeking a way of 
evasion, they have an unusual capacity for deceiving 
themselves; if they were they did not deal honestly by 
the country. Either alternative proves them wholly 
unserviceable and untrustworthy. We need not stop, 
therefore, to choose between the alternatives: for we 
are not discussing their characters, but the present inter- 
ests of the country with regard to the tariff. The ques- 
tion that interests us is this: How out of this confusion 
of counsel was an agreement reached, and why was the 
agreement that which the leaders of the Houses desired 
rather than that which the rank and file of the party 
would have honestly preferred? What, when its poli- 
cies are in debate within its own ranks, finally determines 
the course the Republican party will take in a matter 
like this? 

I know, of course, as every one does, how great the 
power of the Speaker of the House ‘is, and the great 
and sinister hold the chairman of the Finance Commit- 
tee of the Senate has upon the legislative machinery of 
that body, whatever signs of apparent independence it 
may show in the open processes of debate. It is matter 


COLLEGE AND STATE 127 


of common knowledge what Mr. Cannon and Mr. Ald- 
rich would prefer to have the House do when any ques- 
tion of this sort is under consideration. But these men 
represent forces, they do not constitute them. ‘The 
forces that control the Republican party lie outside of 
them. ‘They are only the spokesmen of those forces. 
Why do the rank and file of the Republican members 
still, in this day of change, find themselves unable to 
make an independent choice in a matter like this, of 
capital importance to their party and to the country? 
They do not mistake the signs of the times. Why, then, 
are they impotent? 

The question can be answered very frankly, and, I 
hope, without partisan bias and without offense to hon- 
ourable men whose principles I would not presume to call 
in question. ‘he Republican party is old at the business . 
of tariff-making and has established a business constit- 
uency. Its leaders feel that they must satisfy that con- 
stituency, and they force their followers to follow them 
by very concrete and practical arguments. It has come 
to a point where they have grown very stubborn and 
short-sighted in their loyalty to their constituency, but 
that is hardly to be wondered at. ‘The loyalty is of 
long standing and has become a fundamental asset, as 
it seems to them, of party business. | 

The business of tariff-making naturally grows more 
and more complex, naturally comes to involve a greater 
and greater complexity of interests. “Those who con- 
duct it extend their clientage from generation to genera- 
tion, to make sure that they have clients enough. What- 
ever principle may underlie tariff-making, and however 
valid that principle may be, however fundamental to the 
general development and prosperity of the country, 
tariff schedules arranged for “protection” are govern- 
mental favours. Those who make them, though acting 
for the nation, are the patrons of the industries fa- 
voured: they dispense the largess of the Government, 
and those who receive the favours will be their partisans 


128 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and followers so long as the favours continue. The rela- 
tion cannot be avoided. The only thing that can be 
avoided is the corrupting influence of the relationship, 
and that can be avoided only by very strong men. A 
political party cannot withstand it for many generations 
together: cannot, I mean, withstand the gradual cor- 
ruption of its will,—the temptation to make use of the 
patronage it dispenses for the perpetuation of the power 
it derives from it, the unfailing support at the elections 
of the wealthiest and most influential classes of the 
country. 

Here, in a protective tariff, are the entrenchments of 
Special Privilege, and every beneficiary will of course 
crowd into them on the day of battle, determined to 
keep his own. Shall a man not defend what he has? 

I am not seeking to point a moral. Neither am I 
drawing up an indictment of the Republican party. I 
am merely outlining the natural history of a govern- 
mental policy whose prime object is to make particular 
industries safe against competition. Parties are capital 
epitomes of human nature; and I dare say that any other 
party that espoused this principle of legislation would 
use it for party advantage in the same way. My point 
is rather how it has been used than who has used it. 
Its uses and effects are plain,—painfully plain now. Its 
use is to extend to certain undertakings Government 
favour and assistance; its effect has been to build up spe- 
cial privilege. No doubt the country will have to hold 
those responsible who managed the business; but its real 
interest will not be in punishing them, many of them 
honest and public-spirited enough, but in getting rid of 
special privilege. That it has made up its mind to do. 
It now only seeks the best and most effectual way. 

It sees plainly enough, at last, that the place to begin 
is the tariff. That it saw before the last Presidential 
election; but Mr. Cannon and Mr. Aldrich have man- 
aged between them to make it more evident than ever 


COLLEGE AND STATE 129 


before. They have executed their purpose, not wisely, 
but too well. A day of judgment is at hand. 


“The sword of Heaven is not in haste to smite, 
Nor yet doth linger.” 


The purpose of the people has much the same habit. 
Perhaps it is the sword of Heaven! 

It is not a question of schedules. It is possible that 
by reasonable schedules,—by a minimum of favouritism 
and make-believe,—the tariff-makers of the special ses- 
sion might have quieted the country,—might have in- 
duced it to let the troublesome and perplexing subject 
drop for a decade or two. But it would have been only 
a stay of judgment. The essential wrong would still 
have cried out to be righted. And the essential wrong 
is this: that, except for a few men who have been fairly 
hypnotized by a system which they have accepted as 
political gospel since their youth, it has ceased to be a 
matter of principle at all and has become merely a 
method of granting favours. The favours are obtained in 
two ways—by “influence” and by supplication of a kind 
for which there is no classical or strictly parliamentary 
designation. In the vulgar, it is called ‘“‘the baby act.” 

What “influence” consists of is a very occult matter, 
into which the public is not often privileged to inquire. 
It is compounded of various things, in varying propor- 
tions: of argument based upon the facts of industry 
and of commercial interest, of promises of political sup- 
port, of campaign contributions, not explicitly given 
upon condition, but often spoken of by way of reminder, 
of personal ‘“‘pressure” through the channels of old 
friendships and new alliances,—of things too intimate 
to mention,—though not, I believe, even in the minds 
of the most cynical and suspicious, of direct bribes. 
There is seldom any question of personal corruption. 
It is wholly a question of party corruptions, so far as 
it is a question of corruption at all. 

The “baby act” consists in resorting to the Ways and 


130 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Means Committee of the House and the Finance Com- 
mittee of the Senate with pitiful tales, hard-luck stories, 
petitions for another chance, as the hosiery-makers did 
at the special sessions. It is an act very unpalatable to 
American pride, and yet very frequently indulged in 
with no appearance of shame. ‘‘Foreigners make bet- 
ter goods,” is the burden of its cry, ‘“‘pay smaller wages, 
and can add the ocean freights to their price and still 
beat us in our own markets.” It often seems to mean 
that the foreigner has superior skill, uses better machin- 
ery, adapts his patterns more quickly to changing tastes, 
is more practised in economies of all sorts and is content 
with smaller profits. And so a handful of American 
gentlemen go to Congress and beg to be helped to make 
a living and support their operatives. Some among 
them do not need the protection: they have perfected 
their processes and their stuffs, can afford by better 
organization and more studied economies to pay Am- 
erican wages and still beat the foreigner, if need be, in 
his own markets overseas. But the rest do need it to 
make good their failure. American labour is the most 
intelligent in the world, and when intelligently made 
use of is worth its extra wage, earns it without affecting 
the market. But the Government must support those 
who do not know how to use it as intelligently as their 
rivals, and the people of the country must be made to 
buy the goods they make at prices that will support 
them. This is indeed the “‘baby act” and these are easily 
recognizable as “infant industries” ! 

And so the question comes to be, What will the people 
_say of this new system of the support of favoured indus- 
tries by the Government, now that they have come to 
understand it? For it is a new system. ‘The principle 
upon which the system of protection was originally 
founded was the development of the country, the devel- 
opment of the resources of the continent and the skill 
of the people. That principle is intelligible and states- 
manlike, particularly in a new country, without capital 


COLLEGE AND STATE 131 


and unprepared for competition in a trading world. 
The principle now proclaimed and acted upon, with 
show of patriotic fervor, is that profits must be assured 
to those who cannot stand competition after develop- 
ment, after the accumulation of capital in the country, 
the perfecting of skill and the full attainment of eco- 
nomic and industrial independence amidst the trading 
and manufacturing nations of the world. ‘This is indeed 
a new theory and will not bear examination. 

Hamilton’s position, the position of those who have 
intelligently and consistently followed him, is defensible 
enough. It is idle to bid a new nation on an undeveloped 
continent to put its faith in the natural laws of trade 
and production, buy in the cheapest and sell in the dear- 
est market, build up its wealth on the demand for what 
it has and buy what it has not. For it has not at the 
outset capital enough to find out either its resources or 
its capacities. There must be a waiting and a spending 
time at the first before it finds out what its resources 
are and what it can do with them. The farmer cannot 
expect a crop the first season from unbroken prairie 
or uncleared land. It costs money to put nature into 
shape to be profitably used. Deposits of ore do not 
constitute riches until the mines have been opened and 
machinery has been installed by which the ore can be 
readily and economically got out. That takes time and 
money. Even when the mines are opened and can be 
worked at a profit they produce only ore. The nation 
that cannot use its ores in manufacture is still a poor 
nation, however rich its deposits. Only a few men in 
it will be rich until other men in it get the capital and 
the opportunity to use the ores in manufacture. ‘That, 
again, takes time and money. South Africa was not 
rich because a few men owned and worked diamond 
mines in it. Taking the world at large and as a whole, 
how are you to know which is the cheapest market in 
which to buy or the most advantageous in which to sell, 
so long as a whole continent lies undeveloped, a whole 


132 COLLEGE AND STATE 


nation untrained, so long as America or South Africa 
has not come into the markets with its hidden stuffs and 
its unschooled peoples? 

This is the question for statesmen. Nobody now 
doubts that the policy of Hamilton put the nation under 
a great stimulation, gave it the economic independence 
it needed, immensely quickened the development of its 
resources and the powers of its people. Protected from 
the direct competition of those who had already ac- 
quired capital oversea, who had already become mas- 
ters of industry and put hundreds of ships upon the sea, 
who had the stuffs to work in and the skill to work them, 
things took on a very different aspect for the enter- 
prising spirits of the young nation from that which they 
had worn in the old colony days. ‘Those who cared to 
venture upon enterprise,—and who in America did not? 
—had the markets of a growing and industrious people 
to themselves. As the nation grew their trade grew, 
and their wealth,—with their wealth, their independence 
and their spirit of enterprise. It was wise,—in the cir- 
cumstances it was more than wise, it was necessary,— 
to give the country an opportunity thus to find itself. 
It was necessary and wise to put it thus economically 
upon its own.feet and make it worth its while to dis- 
cover and develop its own resources. 

It is perfectly consistent with such a policy, more- 
over, to give to every new enterprise, even in our day 
of America’s abounding wealth and resourcefulness, such 
protection as it may need to get its start and come to its 
proper perfection of equipment and operation, provided 
it be an enterprise suitable to America’s soil or resources 
or capacities. So far as the policy of protection has 
for its object the diversification and enrichment of 
American industry, it is admissible, dangerous though 
it be, because liable to be used in a spirit of favouritism 
and for party ends. ‘The only thing not consistent with 
the sound original policy upon which the single defen- 
sible theory of the system rests is the encouragement 


COLLEGE AND STATE 133 


and support by “protection” of industries in their very 
nature not natural to America, but forced,and artificial. 
Being artificial, not indigenous from the outset, they will . 
need artificial stimulation to the end. ‘Those who 
undertake them will always have to be supported out 
of the public purse—by the taxes laid at the ports. 

But this original basis and theory of protection, this 
genuine enterprise of statesmanship, was long ago 
abandoned or forgotten by the leaders of the party that 
stood for the system. Its leaders no longer talk of 
‘infant industries’’ to be carefully nurtured and brought 
to maturity for the sake of the nation and its develop- 
ment. ‘They know the sort of smile with which such 
talk would now be received and do not relish the thought 
of it. They boast, rather, of the economic supremacy 
of America in the money-markets, the steel-markets, 
the foodstuff-markets, the implement and machinery 
markets of the world, and naively insist that that su- 
premacy should be maintained by import duties at the 
ports levied for the sake of those who are conducting 
our successful enterprises, in order to keep their profits 
safely up and make them feel that the country (which 
is, being interpreted, the party in power) will take care 
of them. It is not a system of stimulation or develop- . 
ment; it is a system of patronage. Statesmen need no 
longer debate it: politicians of very ordinary managing 
abilities can easily keep it going. Indeed, it is no proper 
job for statesmen. It is a thing of lobbies and private 
interviews, not a thing of open debate and public policy. 

Even this bad system worked no radical harm upon 
the country for a generation or two. ‘The continent 
abounded in every kind of natural riches, individuals 
were greatly stimulated by the many inviting opportu- 
nities for manufacture and trade, the population of the 
country was growing by leaps and bounds, its domestic 
markets widening with every decade, its diversified in- 
dustries enriching one another. The country was gen- 
erously big and wide and various, its immense stretches 


134 COLLEGE AND STATE 


extending into every climate of the temperate zone, its 
hills and valleys and high ascending western slopes 
inviting to every development of modern civilization. 
Its vast areas of free trade, trade absolutely without 
hindrance or restriction, guaranteed exemption from re- 
straint by the interstate commerce clause of the Con- 
stitution, made it an incomparable field for rapid and 
normal development, a development about which, it 
turned out, there was almost nothing that was artificial 
and little that was not sound and lasting. 

Moreover, those who had undertaken the great in- 
dustries to which the customs legislation of Congress 
had given leave and not yet gone into combination. 
Enterprise was entered upon on individual initiative, 
was conducted by simple partnerships and small com- 
panies. There was a very active and quickening competi- 
tion within the field of each undertaking that proved 
profitable. [hose who succeeded had no more power 
than their mere wit at succeeding gave them. Fortunes 
were made, but upon a modest scale. The rich men of 
the country had only their local influence and did not 
determine the industrial processes of a whole continent 
or the methods of a whole industry. The prosperity 
of the country wore a generous and democratic aspect 
and did not set classes off in sharp contrast against one 
another. There was favouritism in arranging the system 
of protection, of course, and individuals were very often 
thought of rather than the country as a whole. The 
“‘log-rolling’’ in Congress was very often spoken of in 
the newspapers and with a great deal of asperity. The 
system had its glaring faults and dangers. But it was 
at least a game into which almost any one could get. 
It did not yet wear the ugly face of monopoly or special 
privilege. 

We look upon a very different scene now. It is no 
longer a scene of individual enterprise, of small bodies 
of capital embarked upon a thousand undertakings,— 
a scene of individual opportunity and individual achieve- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 135 


ment,—able men everywhere, singly or in small groups, 
making themselves the economic servants of commu- 
nities and reaping the legitimate profit of many an enter- 
prise their own brains had conceived. It was in that day 
that the industries of the country were originated and 
put upon a footing to succeed. In our later day those 
who control the great masses of capital swept together 
out of the multitudinous earnings of the last two or 
three generations have combined together and put at 
the head of every great industry a dominating corpora- 
tion, or group of corporations, with an organization and | 
resources which are irresistible by any individual com- 
petitor,—by any competitor not supported by a like 
colossal combination of brains and means. ‘The richest 
of those who enjoy the favours of the Government have 
combined to enjoy a monopoly of those favours. Enor- 
mous fortunes are piled up for a few, for those who 
organize and control these great combinations; but 
they are relatively very few in number and all men in 
their field of enterprise who are not in their combina- 
tion are apt to become, first their crushed rivals, and 
then their servants and subordinates. 

It is a very different America from the old. All the 
recent scandals of our business history have sprung out 
of the discovery of the use those who directed these 
great combinations were making of their power: their 
power to crush, their power to monopolize. Their 
competition has not stimulated, it has destroyed. Their 
success has not varied industry, it has standardized it 
and brought it all under a single influence and regula- 
tion,—not the regulation of law, but the regulation of 
monopoly. 

It is easy to exaggerate the iniquity of many of the 
things that have been done under this régime of the trust 
and the colossal corporation. Most of their methods 
were simply the old cut-throat methods of private indi- 
vidual competition on a new scale. What made them 
cruel and disastrous was not their kind, but their scope. 


136 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Their kind was as old as economic history and rivalry 
in industrial enterprise, but their scale was new and 
ominous. The competition, the underselling, the aggres- 
sive canvassing, the rival expenditure and rapid improve- 
ment of process possible to these men who had vast 
capital behind them, who shipped so much that every 
railroad stood ready to bid for their patronage with 
lowered rates, who could buy a competitor out at any 
price and stood always ready to buy at the moment of 
greatest strain and discouragement, could not be with- 
stood. The field cleared before them. The power was 
theirs, and smaller men, smaller concerns, went down 
before them. They had “cornered” the opportunity 
which the Government’s favouring legislation had been 
intended to create. 

Too much moral blame, it seems to me, has been laid 
upon the men who effected these stupendous changes. 
They were men of extraordinary genius, many of them, 
capable of creating and organizing States and Empires. 
Commercial morals had not been adjusted, by them- 
selves or any one else, to the new and unprecedented 
scale upon which they did business. Private consciences 
were pooled and confused and swallowed up in those 
huge combinations. Men were excited and blinded by 
the vast object they sought, and pursued it, as it were, 
impersonally, by means they would not have used had 
they been dealing simply and face to face with persons 
and not merely upon paper with complex transactions, 
involving the business of a continent. It was a process 
in which commercial morals had again to find them- 
selves, as in the days of treasure fleets and international 
spoliation. 

But my present object is not to assess individual re- 
sponsibility. I am describing conditions, not drawing 
up an indictment against those who created them or 
framing an excuse for them. I am studying a national 
policy and its effects; and about that, viewed in its 


COLLEGE AND STATE 137 


present aspects, some things are very plain and ought to 
be plainly spoken of. 

In the first place, it is plain that these new masters of - 
our industry do not need the assistance or the ‘‘protec- 
tion” of the Government. They own or control a pre- 
ponderant percentage of the resources of the country: 
of its mines, its forests, its cattle, its railways. They 
have brought the industries they control to a high state 
of perfection in equipment and organization, economiz- 
ing their processes and improving their output. They 
have invaded foreign markets and sell to all the world, 
where there is no Government to assist them, where, on 
the contrary, there are hostile tariffs to overcome. They 
have made themselves entire masters of the opportunity 
created for them. Manufacturers engaged in the same 
lines of industry elsewhere copy their machinery and 
imitate their methods. All the world is justly jealqus 
of their huge success. Their balance-sheets, on the one 
hand, and the success and skill of their processes, on 
the other, show how little they need protection. 

In the second place, no political party can afford to 
be their partners in business. It amounts to that. In ~ 
the earlier days of protection, when import duties 
created opportunities for thousands of men, the political 
party that maintained the system of protection had all 
the nation for partner. The benefits of the system were 
widely distributed. Its beneficiaries could nowhere be 
assembled in a single lobby. ‘Their names could be 
included in no possible list. They were the people of 
the country by sample. But now, as compared with the 
former thousands, they are few. The names of most of 
them are known everywhere. Their influence is direct, . 
personal, pervasive. 

They are doing nothing novel through the lobby. 
It is just what the beneficiaries of this dangerous system 
have always done. It would seem the natural process 
of obtaining protection,—to ask for it and argue its 
necessity with the figures of the business in hand. But 


138 COLLEGE AND STATE 


they are so few, so individually powerful, and command 
so many things that political parties need, or think that 
they need, for their success: money, widely-extended in- 
fluence, the gift and the use of business organization 
national in their scope and control! They have as 
powerful a machinery ready to their hand as the Goy- 
ernment itself. It is highly dangerous for the Govern- 
ment to be in partnership with them in the great enter- 
prise of developing the country: their grip upon it can 
so easily become too direct and personal! ‘The country 
- cannot afford an alliance of private interest with govern- 
mental authority, for whatever purpose originally con- 
ceived, however honourably arranged at the outset. No 
body of business men, no political party, can long with- 
stand the demoralizing influences of the relationship,— 
particularly no body of men so compact and unified 
in interest as those who manage and finance the trusts. 

It is not necessary for my argument to claim or to 
prove that high protection created the trusts and combi- 
nations of our time. I believe that it can be shown that 
it did, though I am ready to admit that they might, and 
probably would, have arisen in any case, though in a 
different form and with different proportions. But 
that is a complicated question which may for the present 
be put upon one side. Certainly the trusts have now 
cornered the opportunities created by the system of 
high tariffs. They no longer need the assistance of the 
Government; and it is highly desirable that there should 
be no alliance, and no appearance of an alliance, between 
them and either of the political parties. 

That our industries are still greatly stimulated is 
evident enough. ‘They are very vital and very pros- 
perous. There is general employment; and when things 
go well and the money-market is not manipulated, or 
upset by our uncommonly bad system of currency, there 
is a general feeling of ease and hopefulness. But there 
is not general prosperity: that is a very different matter. 
When the great industrial and trade combinations can 


COLLEGE AND STATE 139 


operate freely and without fear of disturbed prices 
and a frightened money-market there is always ready 
enough employment for those who seek it,—at wages 
forced up and maintained, not by prosperity or the good 
business of the great corporations, but by the aggressive- 
ness and determination of organized labour. ‘The coun- 
try is given occupation by those who have cornered the 
privileges to be had under the favour of Congress, and 
their success is easily made to look like the reign of 
unbounded opportunity for the rank and file; but that 
does not increase the proportion of employers to em- 
ployees. The initiative and control are still with the 
few. Their money makes the mare go, and it is they 
who ride. 

It does not do to think of these things with bitterness. 
It is not just to think of them with bitterness. They 
came about by natural process, not by deliberate or 
malignant plan. But it is necessary to point them out in 
plain language, to discuss them with candour and to com- 
prehend them, when the talk is done, with wide-open 
eyes. It is easy to fall into exaggeration. Not all the 
industry of the country is in the hands of great trusts 
and combinations. Only its main undertakings are its 
largest and most lucrative enterprises. But the picture 
I have drawn is, in the rough, true and tends from 
decade to decade to represent the truth more and more 
perfectly and completely. If the tendency had worked 
itself out to its ultimate consequences, if it had accom- 
plished its perfect work, it would probably be too late 
for reform. The body politic is still sound and still 
elastic enough to work upon; and many of the very 
men who have profited most by this new and ominous 
state of affairs are ready to join in the wholesome proc- 
esses of reformation which will make opportunity gen- 
eral again,—not a monopoly, but a universal stimulus. 

The fact which has disclosed itself to us, in these 
later days of the country’s awakening, is this, then. 
We have witnessed the partial creation, the almost com- 


140 COLLEGE AND STATE 


plete creation, on the one hand, of a comparatively small 
privileged class or body of men, the men who control 
capital and the uses to which it is put and who have, 
as the representatives (as all too literally the repre- 
sentatives) of the business of the country, the ear of 
Congressional committees; and we begin to see, under 
them, associated with them, on the other hand, a vast 
unprivileged body (‘‘class” is too definite and formal a 
word) which forces its way to a share in the benefits 
of our apparently prosperous conditions only by threats 
and strikes, and is steadily deprived of a large per- 
centage of what it thus gains by rapidly rising prices 
which day by day increase the cost of living amongst 
us. And the rise of prices itself seems to be connected 
with the system. 

There has been a rise in prices in almost all the trad- 
ing countries. The large recent increase in the supply 
of gold has had a great deal to do with it, here as else- 
where. Gold, the world’s standard of value, having 
become cheaper because more abundant, more of it is 
demanded in exchange for goods, whose value has not 
changed. But this universal phenomenon of the rise 
of prices has had its special features and vagaries in 
America utterly dissociated from the price of gold; and 
it would be easy to prove that those who have managed 
to get control of the greater part of the output of the 
mines and factories have, by combination, set the prices 
to please themselves. They have made the usual use 
of their opportunity. While the Government has, by its 
high protective policy, spared them the anxiety of for- 
eign competition, they have, by organization and agree- 
ment, spared themselves the embarrassment of any com- 
petition at all. 

What, then, shall we do? Shall we adopt Thorough 
as our motto and sweep the whole system away, be quit 
of privilege and favours at once, put our industries upon 
their own resources and centre national legislation 
wholly upon the business of the nation? By no means. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 141 


The system cannot be suddenly destroyed. That would 
bring our whole economic life into radical danger. The 
existing system was built up by statesmanlike and pa- 
triotic men, upon a theory upon which even the most 
sceptical economist must concede it possible to found a 
valid and effective policy. It is very likely that by 
slower, sounder, less artificial means the country might 
have worked its way up to the same extraordinary de- 
velopment and success, the same overwhelming material 
achievement and power; but that is a question no longer 
worth debate by practical men. As a matter of fact, 
the method of artificial stimulation was adopted, has 
been persisted in from generation to generation with a 
constant increase of the stimulation, and we have at 
last, by means of it, come to our present case. It will 
not do to reverse such a policy suddenly or in revolu- 
tionary fashion. 

It must in some conservative way be altered from . 
decade to decade, if possible from year to year, until 
we shall have put all customs legislation upon a safe, 
reasonable and permanent footing. A process of altera- . 
tion, steadily and courageously persisted in, will not dis- 
turb the business or embarrass the industries of the 
country, even if tariff act follows tariff act from session 
to session, if it be founded upon a definite principle by 
which its progress may be forecast and made ready for. 
Such a principle must be found. And the nation must 
find means to insist that, whatever party is in power, 
that principle shall be followed with courage, intelli- 
gence and integrity. The present method and principle 
of legislation does not keep business equable or free 
from harassing anxiety. It is based upon no principle, 
except that of self-interest,—which is no principle at 
all. No calculable policy can be derived from it. Dis- 
cussion gives place to intrigue, and nothing is ever 
fixed or settled by its application. 

What, then, shall the principle of reform be which 
shall hold us steady to an impartial and intelligible 


142 COLLEGE AND STATE 


process? The old principle of Hamilton, in a new form 
and application: the very principle upon which the pro- 
tective policy was set up, but applied for the purpose 
of reforming the system and bringing it to the test of 
a single definite object, its original purpose and energy 
having been fulfilled and spent. 

Hamilton’s purpose was to develop America, to give 
her industries of her own; to make it immediately worth 
the while of her enterprising and energetic men to dis- 
cover and use her natural resources, the richness and ex- 
tent of which even he never dreamed of; to enrich and 
expand her trade and give her an interior economic 
development which should make her an infinitely vari- 
ous market within herself; and to continue the stimula- 
tion until her statesmen should be sure that she had 
found her full vigour and capacity, was mistress of her 
own wealth and opportunity, and was ready to play her 
independent part in the competitions and achievements 
of the world. ‘That object has been attained. No man 
not blinded by some personal interest or inveterate pre- 
possession can doubt it. What would Hamilton do 
now? 

In one sense, it is not a question of politics. It does 
not involve Hamilton’s theories of Government or of 
constitutional interpretation. Some of us are Jeffer- 
sonians, not Hamiltonians, in political creed and princi- 
ple, and would not linger long over the question, What 
shall we do to return safely to Hamilton? It is not a 
Hamiltonian question. Constitutional lawyers long ago 
determined that it was certainly within the choice of 
Congress to lay import duties, if it pleased, with a view 
to the incidental benefit of traders and manufacturers 
within the country; and, if that incidental object has 
in later days become the chief and only guiding object 
of the rates of duty, that, I take it, is only a question 
of more or less, not a question which cuts so deep as 
to affect the power of Congress or draw it seriously into 
debate again. As a matter of fact, the policy was 


COLLEGE AND STATE 143 


entered upon and has been carried—to what lengths we 
know. The Hamiltonian principle, not a political, but 
an economic principle, was the only wise and defensible 
principle upon which it could have been established. It 
is also the only wise and safe principle upon which it can 
be modified and in part got rid of. For when you have 
the general benefit of the country as your standard, you 
have a principle upon which it is as legitimate to with- 
draw protection as to give it. ; 

It may seem like a vague principle, affording room 
for many varieties of contrary judgment; but it will 
be found to lose its vagueness when stated in contrast 
with the principle upon which Congress has acted in 
recent years. In all the recent tariff legislation of the 
country, in all legislation since 1828, the committees of 
the House and Senate, when making up the several 
schedules of duties they were to propose, have asked, 
not what will be good for the country, but what will 
be good for the industries affected, what can they stand, 
what rates of duty will assure them abundant profits? 
It is true that they have assumed,—it has been the bur- 
den of innumerable weary campaign speeches,—that the 
prosperity of the individual interest considered would 
be the prosperity of the country; but the poor sophistry 
of that argument has long been commonplace. By hard, 
desperately hard, use that assumption has been worn 
through to the thread. It must be replaced by new 
and sounder stuff. No doubt you can say to the coun- 
try, “‘Feed and sustain these corporations and they will 
employ you: feed your employers out of the taxes and 
they, in turn, will give you work and feed you.” But 
no candid student of this great question can now confi- 
dently believe that a policy which has the profits of the 
manufacturers as its main object is likely to promote 
the impartial, natural, wholesome, symmetrical, gen- 
eral development of the country. 

The men who happen to possess the field do not con- 
stitute the nation; they do not even represent it when 


144 COLLEGE AND STATE 


they speak of their own interest. We have taught them, 
by our petting, to regard their own interest as the in- 
terest of the country; but the two are by no means 
necessarily identical. “They may be, they may not be. 
It is a question of fact to be looked into. Their pros- 
perity and success may or may not benefit the country 
as a whole. Even if the country be indisputably bene- 
fited, it might be still more highly benefited by the pro- 
motion of an entirely different interest. What the fact 
is may depend upon many circumstances. It is those 
circumstances we are bound to look into, if we be indeed 
statesmen and patriots, asking not what the protected 
interests want or can prove that they need, but what 
it is to the general interest of the country to do: whether 
some interests have not been too much favoured, given a 
dominance not at all compatible either with honest poli- 
tics or wholesome economic growth. In brief, we are 
now face to face with a great question of fact. What 
part of the protective system still benefits the country 
and is in the general interest; what part is unnecessary; 
what part is pure favouritism and the basis of dangerous 
and demoralizing special privilege? These are the 
questions which should underlie a tariff policy. No 
other questions are pertinent or admissible. 

‘The benefit of the country” is a big phrase. What 
do you mean by it? What do you mean by “the coun- 
try’? Whom do you mean by it? If you are honest 
and sincere, you mean the people of the country, its 
sections and varieties of climate and population taken, 
not separately or by their voting strength, but together; 
its men and women of every rank and quality and cir- 
cumstance; its bone and sinew. If any particular indus- 
try has been given its opportunity to establish itself and 
get its normal development, under cover of the cus- 
toms, and is still unable to meet the foreign competi- 
tion which is the standard of its efficiency, it is unjust 
to tax the people of the country any further to support 
it. Wherever the advantages accorded by a tariff have 


COLLEGE AND STATE 145 


resulted in giving those who control the greater part 
of the output of a particular industry the chance, after 
their individual success has been achieved, to combine 
and ‘corner’ the advantage, those advantages ought 
to be withdrawn; and the presumption is that every 
industry thus controlled has had the support of the 
Government as long as it should have it. 

There is something more than the economic activities 
of the country to be considered. ‘There is its moral 
soundness; the variety, not of employment, but of op- 
portunity for individual initiative and action which the 
policy of its law creates; the standards of business its 
trades and manufactures observe and are gauged by; and 
the connection which exists between its successful busi- 
ness men and its Government. By these significant mat- 
ters should the tariff policy of Congress be judged, as 
well as by the tests of successful business. 

Only those undertakings should be given the pro- 
tection of high duties on imports which are manifestly 
suited to the country and as yet undeveloped or only 
imperfectly developed. From all the rest protection 
should be withdrawn, the object of the Government 
being, not to support its citizens in business, but to pro- 
mote the full energy and development of the country. 
Existing protection should not be suddenly withdrawn, 
but steadily and upon a fixed programme upon which 
every man of business can base his definite forecasts and 
systematic plans. For the rest, the object of customs 
taxation should be revenue for the Government. ‘The 
Federal Government should depend for its revenue 
chiefly on taxes of this kind, because the greater part 
of the field of direct taxation must be left to the States. 
It must raise abundant revenue, therefore, from cus- 
toms duties. But it should choose for taxation the 
things which are not of primary necessity to the peo- 
ple in their lives or their industry, things, for the most 
part, which they can do without without suffering or 
actual privation. If taxes levied upon these do not 


146 COLLEGE AND STATE 


suffice, the things added should be those which it would 
cause them the least inconvenience or suffering to dis- 
pense with. Customs thus laid and with such objects 
will be found to yield more, and the people will be freer. 

There is no real difficulty about finding how and where 
to lay such taxes when once a just principle has been 
agreed upon, if statesmen have the desire to find it. 
The only trouble is to ascertain the facts in a very 
complex economic system. Honest inquiry will soon find 
them out, and honest men will readily enough act upon 
them, if they be not only honest, but also courageous, 
true lovers of justice and of their country. 


THE IDEAL UNIVERSITY 


FROM MR. WILSON’S ORIGINAL TYPEWRITTEN MANU- 
SCRIPT WITH HIS PEN AND INK CORRECTIONS, 
DATED “PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, 6 JULY, 1909,” 
AND SIGNED WITH HIS AUTOGRAPH. PUBLISHED 
IN THE “DELINEATOR,’ NOVEMBER, 1909, VOL. 
LXXIV, P. 401. 


| Bae word University means, in our careless usage, 
so many different things that almost every time 
one employs it it seems necessary to define it. Nowhere 
has it so many meanings as in America, where institu- 
tions of all kinds display it in the titles they bestow upon 
themselves. School, college, and university are readily 
enough distinguishable in fact by those who take the 
pains to look into the scope and methods of their teach- 
ing; but they are quite indistinguishable, oftentimes, in 
name. They are as apt as not all to bear the same 
title. 

But practice is always the best definer; and practice 
is slowly working out for us in America a sufficiently 
definite idea of what a university is. It is not the same 
idea that has been worked out in England or Germany 
or France. American universities will probably, when 
worked out to the logical fulfillment of their natural 
development, show a type distinct from all others. 
They will be distinctive of what America has thought 
out and done in the field of higher education. Those 
which are already far advanced in their development 
even now exhibit an individual and characteristic organ- 
ization. 

The American university as we now see it consists of 
many parts. At its heart stands the college, the school 

147 


148 COLLEGE AND STATE 


of general training. Above and around the college 
stand the graduate and technical schools, in which spe- 
cial studies are prosecuted and preparation is given for 
particular professions and occupations. Technical and 
professional schools are not a necessary part of a uni- 
versity, but they are greatly benefited by close asso- 
ciation with a university and the university itself is 
unmistakably benefited and quickened by the transmis- 
sion of its energy into them and the reaction of their 
standards and objects upon it. As a rule the larger 
universities of the country have law schools, divinity 
schools, and medical schools under their care and direc- 
tion; and training for these, the “‘learned,”’ professions 
has long been considered a natural part of their 
work. 

Schools of mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering 
have of late years become as numerous and as necessary 
as the schools which prepare for the older professions, 
and they have naturally in most cases grown up in con- 
nection with universities because their processes are the 
processes of science and the modern university is, among 
other things, a school of pure science, with laboratories 
and teachers indispensable to the engineer. But the 
spirit of technical schools has not always been the spirit 
of learning. ‘They have often been intensely and very 
frankly utilitarian, and pure science has looked at them 
askance. They are proper parts of a university only 
when pure science is of the essence of their teaching, 
the spirit of pure science the spirit of all their studies. 
It is only of recent years that we have seen thoughtful 
engineers coming to recognize this fact, preach this 
change of spirit; it is only of recent years, therefore, 
that technical schools have begun to be thoroughly and 
truly assimilated into the university organization. 

There is an ideal at the heart of everything American, 
and the ideal at heart of the American university is 
intellectual training, the awakening of the whole man, 
the thorough introduction of the student to the life 


COLLEGE AND STATE 149 


of America and of the modern world, the completion 
of the task undertaken by the grammar and high schools 
of equipping him for the full duties of citizenship. It 
is with that idea that I have said that the college stands 
at the heart of the American university. The college 
stands for liberal training. Its object is discipline and 
enlightenment. ‘The average thoughtful American does 
not want his son narrowed in all his gifts and thinking 
to a particular occupation. He wishes him to be made 
free of the world in which men think about and under- 
stand many things, and to know how to handle himself 
in it. He desires a training for him which will give 
him a considerable degree of elasticity and adaptability, 
and fit him to turn in any direction he chooses. For 
men do not live in ruts in America. They do not al- 
ways or of necessity follow the callings their fathers 
followed before them. ‘They are ready to move this 
way or that as interest or occasion suggests. Versa- 
tility, adaptability, a wide range of powers, a quick and 
easy variation of careers, men excelling in businesses 
for which they never had any special preparation,— 
these are among the most characteristic marks of Amer- 
ican life,—its elasticity and variety, the rapid shifting 
of parts, the serviceability of the same men for many 
different things, and the quick intelligence of men of 
many different kinds in the common undertakings of 
politics and in public affairs of all kinds. If the Amer- 
ican college were to become a vocational school, pre- 
paring only for particular callings, it would be thor- 
oughly un-American. It would be serving special, 
not general, needs and seeking to create a country 
of specialized men without versatility or general 
capacity. 

The college of the ideal American university, there- 
fore, is a place intended for general intellectual disci- 
pline and enlightenment; and not for intellectual disci- 
pline and enlightenment only, but also for moral and 
spiritual discipline and enlightenment. America is great, 


150 COLLEGE AND STATE 


not by reason of her skill, but by reason of her spirit, 
her spirit of general serviceableness and intelligence. 
That is the reason why it is necessary to keep her col- 
leges under constant examination and criticism. If we 
do not they may forget their own true function, which 
is to supply America and the professions with enlight- 
ened men. 

I have described the university as a place with a 
college at its heart but with graduate schools and pro- 
fessional schools standing above and around the col- 
lege. The difficulty about thus associating teaching 
of different kinds is that the spirit of the graduate and 
professional schools should not be the same spirit as 
that of the college, and that there are certain dangers 
of infection to which the college and the schools of ad- 
vanced and professional study are both alike exposed 
by the association. Look, first, at the danger to the col- 
lege. It is in danger of getting the point of view of 
the graduate and professional schools: the point of 
view of those who prosecute study very intensively along 
special lines. Their object, if they be thorough, is tech- 
nical scholarship. ‘That should not be the object of the 
college. Its studies, as America has conceived the col- 
lege (and I am sure she has conceived it rightly), are 
not prosecuted with a view to scholarship. Scholarship 
cannot be had at the age of twenty-one, at the age at 
which youngsters graduate from college. They may by 
that time have been made to see the way, the arduous 
way, to scholarship and to desire to travel it; but they 
cannot have travelled it. It is a long road. A life- 
time is consumed before one reaches the quiet inn at 
the end of it. The object of the college is a much sim- 
pler one; and yet no less great. It is to give intellectual 
discipline and impart the spirit of learning. 

We have misconceived and misused the college as an 
instrument of American life when we have organized 
and used it as a place of special preparation for particu- 
lar tasks and callings. It is for liberal training, for 


2S: 


aiaistérs, lawyers would all alike be made, first of all, oltizens 6f the nod- 
ern intellectual and soclal world,—first of all university men, with a broad 
outlook om the various knowledge of the world,=and then experts in a great prao- 
tical profession, which they would anderstand all the better because thcy had 
first been grounded in sclenoe and in the other great bodies of knowledge which 
are the fountzins of all practsos. That 1s the service the university owes the 
profesefonatl sehools assoctated with it. Tts parte shouli be witally united 

from end to eod. 

The professionat sshools, in-thete turn, @€6 the anfiversity this distinot and 
very great ee xeop it in conscious ASsogsation with the practical 
world, its necessities and its problems. Through them it better anderstands 
what kwouledgc, what kind of men, what scholarship, what sorals, what action 
will bost penne’ the age for whose enlightenment and assistance it exiatsa, Our 
universities should be “ideal” ohiefly in this, that they serve the intellectual 
needs of the ege, not in one thing, not in any one way only, bat all around the 
oe@ercile, with a varioce ana universal adaptation to their age and generation. 
Amorica oan never dispense with the geneuetbiconlightenment of general etndy, ani 
should wish to have us many of her young men as possible subjected to its influ- 
ences, She should demand that her professional sohools be grounded in such 
studies, in order that her poofessional men may ses something more than indi- 
viduat interest in what they do. It is best, therefore, WY 0 eter should 
be closely assoolated with universities, a part of their vital organization, ine 
timate parts of their systom of study. That very asscolation and inclusion 
should mako them more thorough in their partioular practioal taska. They should 
be the better schools of technical training. The ideal Saenene tyes rounded 
oat by them, and their rootea are enriched by her fertile soil of «knowledge and 
Inquirye The ideal university woul? consist of all these parts, assoolated in 
this spirit, wsintnined always in this relationship. 


Vt set aps, 
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FACSIMILE OF A CHARACTERISTIC WILSON MANUSCRIPT 
The end of the original typewritten script of “The Ideal University.” 


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COLLEGE AND STATE I51 


general discipline, for that preliminary general enlight- 
enment which every man should have who enters modern 
life with any intelligent hope or purpose of leader- 
ship and achievement. By a liberal training I do not 
mean one which vainly seeks to introduce undergradu- 
ates to every subject of modern learning. That would, 
of course, be impossible. ‘There are too many of them. 
At best the pupil can, within the four years at the dis- 
posal of the college, be introduced to them only by 
sample. He can be, and should be, given a thorough 
grounding in mathematics, in his own language and in 
some language not his own, in one of the fundamental 
physical and natural sciences, in the general conceptions 
of philosophy, in the outlines of history, and in the 
elements of correct political thinking; and it is very de- 
sirable that he should go beneath the surface in some 
one of these subjects, study it with more than usual 
attention and thoroughness, and find in it, if he can, 
some independence of judgment and inquiry. Students 
in a modern college cannot all follow the same road, 
and it is not desirable that they should do so. Besides 
the thorough drill in a few fundamental subjects which 
they should all have, they should be allowed and en- 
couraged to make the special, individual choices of par- 
ticular flelds of study which will give them an oppor- 
tunity to develop special gifts and aptitudes and which 
will call out their powers of initiative and enable them 
to discover themselves. ‘The college should be a place 
of various studies, alive with a great many different 
interests. 

The common discipline should come from very hard 
work, from the inexorable requirement that every stu- 
dent should perform every task set him, whether gen- 
eral or special, whether of his own choice or exacted 
by the general scheme of study prescribed for all, with 
care and thoroughness. The spirit of work should 
pervade the place, honest, diligent, painstaking work. 
Otherwise it would certainly be no proper place of 


152 COLLEGE AND STATE 


preparation for the strenuous, exacting life of America 
in our day. Its ‘“‘liberalizing’’ influences should be got 
from its life, even more than from its studies. Special 
studies become liberal when those who are pursuing 
them associate constantly and familiarly with those 
who are pursuing other studies, studies of many kinds, 
pursued from many points of view. ‘The real enlight- 
enments of life come, not from tasks or from books, so 
much as from free intercourse with other persons who, 
in spite of you, inform and stimulate you, and make 
you realize how big and various the world is, how 
many things there are in it to think about, and how 
necessary it is to think about the subjects you are spe- 
cially interested in in their right relation to many, many 
others, if you would think of them correctly and get 
to the bottom of what you are trying to do. 

The ideal college, therefore, should be a community, 
a place of close, natural, intimate association, not only 
of the young men who are its pupils and novices in 
various lines of study but also of young men with older 
men, with maturer men, with veterans and professionals 
in the great undertakings of learning, of teachers with 
pupils, outside the classroom as well as inside of it. 
No one is successfully educated within the walls of any 
particular classroom or laboratory or museum; and no 
amount of association, however close and familiar and 
delightful, between mere beginners can ever produce the 
sort of enlightenment which the lad gets when first he 
begins to catch the infection of learning. ‘The trouble 
with most of our colleges nowadays is that the faculty 
of the college live one life and the undergraduates quite 
a different one. ‘They are not members of the same 
community; they constitute two communities. ‘The life 
of the undergraduate is not touched with the personal 
influence of the teacher; life among the teachers is not 
touched by the personal impressions which should come 
from frequent and intimate contact with undergradu- 
ates. The teacher does not often enough know what 


a 


COLLEGE AND STATE 153 


the undergraduate is thinking about, or what models he 
is forming his life upon, and the undergraduate does 
not know how human a fellow the teacher is, how de- 
lightfully he can talk, outside the classroom, of the sub- 
jects he is most interested in, how many interesting 
things both his life and his studies illustrate and make 
attractive. This separation need not exist, and in the 
college of the ideal university would not exist. 

It is perfectly possible to organize the life of our col- 
leges in such a way that students and teachers alike will 
take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural 
daily intercourse will be established between them; and 
it is only by such an organization that they can be given 
real vitality as places of serious training, be made com- 
munities in which youngsters will come fully to realize 
how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how im- 
portant, how closely associated with all modern achieve- 
ment,—only by such an organization that study can be 
made to seem a part of life itself. Lectures often seem 
very formal and empty things; recitations generally 
prove very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation 
and natural intercourse with scholars, chiefly, that you 
find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything 
that is interesting and important, how intimate a part 
it is of everything that is “practical”? and connected with 
the world of affairs. Men are not always made thought- 
ful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by 
association maith men who think. 

The present and most pressing problem of our uni- 
versity authorities is to bring about this vital association 
for the benefit of the novices of the university world, 
the undergraduates. Classroom methods are thorough 
enough; competent scholars already lecture and ex- 
pound and set tasks and superintend their performance; 
but the life of the average undergraduate outside the 
classroom and outside of his other stated appointments 
with his instructors is not very much affected by his 
studies, is almost entirely dissociated from intellectual 


154 COLLEGE AND STATE 


interests, is too freely and exclusively given over to ath- 
letics and amusement. Athletics are in themselves 
wholesome, and are necessary to every normal youth. 
They give him vigour and should give him the spirit 
of the sportsman,—should keep him out of many things 
of a very demoralizing sort which he would be inclined 
to do if he did not spend his energy out-of-doors and 
in the gymnasium. Amusement, too, is necessary. All 
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, not only, but 
a very unserviceable boy, besides, with no ginger or 
spirit in him, no alertness, no capacity to vary his occu- 
pations or to make the most of himself. But athletics 
and mere amusement ought never to become serious and 
absorbing occupations, even with youngsters. They 
should be diversions merely, by which the strain of 
work is relieved, the powers refreshed and given spon- 
taneous play. The only way in which they can be given 
their proper subordination is to associate them with 
things which are not only more important but quite as 
natural and interesting. Knowledge, study, intellectual 
effort will seem to undergraduates more important than 
athletics and amusement and just as natural only when 
older men, themselves vital and interesting and compan- 
ionable, are thrown into close daily association with 
them. The spirit of learning can be conveyed only by 
contagion, and contagion occurs only by personal con- 
tact. The association of studies and persons is the 
proper prescription. 

Turn from the college, which lies at the heart of the 
university, to the graduate and professional schools 
which lie about the college and are built upon it, and 
you are discussing an entirely different matter, looking 
for different principles and methods. This right rela- 
tionship to the college, moreover, is a very difficult ques- 
tion to determine. Both the college and the high school 
are trying to do two things at once,—two things not 
entirely consistent with one another. The majority of 
pupils in the high school, the very large majority, do 


COLLEGE AND STATE 155 


not intend to carry their studies any further, do not 
intend to go beyond the high school to college. They 
must get all the schooling they are going to get before 
they leave the high school. They must be given the 
best training, the completest awakening within the field 
of knowledge, that the school can give them, for that 
is to be their final preparation for life. A small minor- 
ity, however, must be prepared to enter college and to 
go further with their studies. Majority and minority 
must be handled, in such circumstances, in different ways, 
and it is very hard indeed to arrange the courses of 
study in a way that will be suitable for both. The high 
school is clearly justified in shaping its policy and its 
methods of instruction to the needs, first of all, of the 
majority. Exceptional arrangements must be made, if 
possible, for the minority. Similarly, in the college the 
great majority of undergraduates mean to go at once 
from their courses there into some active practical pur- 
suit; do not mean to go on to more advanced univer- 
sity studies. A minority, on the other hand,—a larger 
minority than in the schools,—do intend to go further, 
will enter the graduate schools to become teachers and 
investigators or the technical and professional schools 
to fit themselves for some calling for which a special 
training is necessary. ‘The difficulty of the college is 
to arrange courses and adopt methods which will serve 
both these classes of students. It does so, generally, by 
offering a much larger choice of studies than it is possi- 
ble or desirable for the school to offer. But the ma- 
jority must determine its chief characteristics and adap- 
tations. Its chief object must be general preparation, 
general training, an all-round awakening of the facul- 
ties. 

It is evident, therefore, that the college, while it 
should be the foundation of the professional schools, not 
only stands below them, as their support and feeder, 
but also alongside of them,—would be necessary if 
they did not exist; furnishes the only introduction our 


156 COLLEGE AND STATE 


young men desire or need get to the wider fields of ac- 
tion and experience which lie beyond it. It is first of 
all and chiefly a general fitting school for life. Its 
social organization and influence are almost as impor- 
tant as its classrooms. It is not a subordinate school, 
but the chief, the central school of the university. For 
the professional schools it is, at the same time, an in- 
dispensable foundation. ‘That profession is clearly im- 
poverished which does not draw to its special studies 
men bred to understand life and the broader relations 
of their profession in some thorough school of general 
training. In these higher schools the atmosphere is 
changed; another set of objects lies before the student; 
his mind has already begun to centre upon tasks which 
will fill the rest of his life. He cannot after entering 
upon that discipline seek the things that will connect 
him with the more general fields of learning and experi- 
ence, | 
What is called the Graduate School in our American 
universities is not, strictly speaking, a professional 
school. As a matter of fact most of its pupils will be 
found to be looking forward to the profession of teach- 
ing; but graduate schools of the higher type do not keep 
that profession in mind in their instruction. Their object 
is to train scholars, whether in the field of literature, 
or science, or philosophy, or in the apparently more 
practical field of politics. ‘They carry the college proc- 
ess a stage further and seek to induct their students into 
the precise, exacting methods of scholarship. They 
not only carry the college process further, they also 
alter it. ‘Their students are thrown more upon their 
own resources in their studies: are expected to enter on 
researches of their own, strike out into independent lines 
of inquiry, stand upon their own feet in every investiga- 
tion, come out of their novitiate and gain a certain de- 
gree of mastery in their chosen field, their professors 
being little more than their guides and critics. They 
are not taught how to teach: there is no professional 


COLLEGE AND STATE ise 


tone in the life of the school. ‘They are taught how 
to learn, thoroughly and independently, and to make 
scholars of themselves. 

Schools of medicine, law, and theology, on the other 
hand, while also, when upon a proper plane, schools of 
scholarship, are professional schools, and have in all 
their instruction the professional point of view. Their 
object is not only to introduce their students to the mas- 
tery of certain subjects, as the graduate school does, 
but also to prepare them for the “‘practice’’ of a particu- 
lar profession. ‘They devote a great deal of attention, 
therefore, to practical method,—to the ways in which 
the knowledge acquired in them is to be used in dealing 
with diseases, with disputes between men at loggerheads 
over their legal rights, and with the needs and inter- 
ests of men who should be helped with spiritual counsel 
and guidance. ‘They are frankly and of necessity pro- 
fessional. The spirit of the doctor’s or of the lawyer’s 
office, of the pulpit and of the pastor’s study, pervades 
them. They school their men for particular tasks, very 
complicated and very difficult, and seek to guide them 
by many practical maxims. 

Similarly, the technical schools, the schools of engi- 
neering and of the mechanic arts, the schools of applied 
science, are professional schools, their objects practical, 
definite, utilitarian. Their students must not only know 
science and have their feet solidly upon the footing of 
exact knowledge, but must also acquire a very thorough 
mastery of methods, a definite skill and practice, readi- 
ness and precision in a score of mechanical processes 
which make of them a sort of master workmen. The 
practical air of the shop pervades such schools, as the 
practical air of the office pervades the law school. They 
are intent upon business, and are conscious all the time 
that they must make ready for it in a very thorough 
fashion. 

In the professional schools of an ideal university 
nothing of this practical spirit would be abated,—for 


158 COLLEGE AND STATE 


such schools are one and all intensely and immediately 
practical in their object and must have practice always 
in mind if they would be truly serviceable; but there 
would always lie back of their work, by close associa- 
tion with the studies of the university in pure science 
and in all the great subjects which underlie law and 
theology, the impulse and the informing spirit of dis- 
interested inquiry, of study, which has no utilitarian 
object but seeks only the truth. The spirit of gradu- 
ate study, and of undergraduate, too, would be car- 
ried over into all professional work, and engineers, doc- 
tors, ministers, lawyers would all alike be made, first 
of all, citizens of the modern intellectual and social 
world,—first of all university men, with a broad outlook 
on the various knowledge of the world,—and then ex- 
perts in a great practical profession, which they would 
understand all the better because they had first been 
grounded in science and in the other great bodies of 
knowledge which are the fountains of all practice. That 
is the service the university owes the professional schools 
associated with it. Its parts should be vitally united 
from end to end. 

The professional schools, in their turn, do the uni- 
versity this distinct and very great service, that they 
keep it in conscious association with the practical world, 
its necessities and its problems. Through them it better 
understands what knowledge, what kind of men, what 
scholarship, what morals, what action will best serve the 
age for whose enlightenment and assistance it exists. 
Our universities should be ‘‘ideal’’ chiefly in this, that 
they serve the intellectual needs of the age, not in one 
thing, not in any one way only, but all around the cir- 
cle, with a various and universal adaptation to their 
age and generation. America can never dispense with 
the enlightenment of general study, and should wish to 
have as many of her young men as possible subjected to 
its influences. She should demand that her professional 
schools be grounded in such studies, in order that her 


COLLEGE AND STATE 159 


professional men may see something more than indi- 
vidual interest in what they do. It is best, therefore, 
that professional schools should be closely associated 
with universities, a part of their vital organization, inti- 
mate parts of their system of study. That very asso- 
ciation and inclusion should make them more thorough 
in their particular practical tasks. They should be the 
better schools of technical training. The ideal univer- 
sity is rounded out by them, and their roots are enriched 
by her fertile soil of catholic knowledge and inquiry. 
The ideal university would consist of all these parts, 
associated in this spirit, maintained always in this rela- 
tionship. 


WHAT IS A COLLEGE FOR? 


FROM ‘‘SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE,’ NOVEMBER, 1909, VOL. 
XLVI, PP. §70-577. 


le may seem singular that at this time of day and in 
this confident century it should be necessary to ask, 
What is a college for? But it has become necessary. I 
take it for granted that there are few real doubts con- 
cerning the question in the minds of those who look 
at the college from the inside and have made themselves 
responsible for the realization of its serious purposes; 
but there are many divergent opinions held concerning 
it by those who, standing on the outside, have pondered 
the uses of the college in the life of the country; and 
their many varieties of opinion may very well have 
created a confusion of counsel in the public mind. 

They are, of course, entirely entitled to their inde- 
pendent opinions and have a right to expect that full 
consideration will be given what they say by those who 
are in fact responsible. ‘The college is for the use of 
the nation, not for the satisfaction of those who admin- 
ister it or for the carrying out of their private views. 
They may speak as experts and with a very intimate 
knowledge, but they also speak as servants of the coun- 
try and must be challenged to give reasons for the con- 
victions they entertain. Controversy, it may be, is not 
profitable in such matters, because it is so easy, in the 
face of opposition, to become a partisan of one’s own 
views and exaggerate them in seeking to vindicate and 
establish them; but an explicit profession of faith can- 
not fail to clear the air, and to assist the thinking both 
of those who are responsible and of those who only look 
on and seek to make serviceable comment. 

160 


COLLEGE AND STATE 161 


Why, then, should a man send his son to college when 
school is finished; or why should he advise any young- 
ster in whom he is interested to go to college? What 
does he expect and desire him to get there? ‘The ques- 
tion might be carried back and asked with regard to 
the higher schools also to which lads resort for prepara- 
tion for college. What are they meant to get there? 
But it will suffice to centre the question on the college. 
What should a lad go to college for,—for work, for 
the realization of a definite aim, for discipline and a 
severe training of his faculties, or for relaxation, for 
the release and exercise of his social powers, for the 
broadening effects of life in a sort of miniature world 
in which study is only one among many interests? That 
is not the only alternative suggested by recent discus- 
sions. ‘They also suggest a sharp alternative with re- 
gard to the character of the study the college student 
should undertake. Should he seek at college a general 
discipline of his faculties, a general awakening to the 
issues and interests of the modern world, or should he, 
rather, seek specially and definitely to prepare himself 
for the work he expects to do after he leaves college, for 
his support and advancement in the world? ‘The two 
alternatives are very different. The one asks whether 
the lad does not get as good a preparation for modern 
life by being manager of a football team with a com- 
plicated programme of intercollegiate games and trips 
away from home as by becoming proficient in mathe- 
matics or in history and mastering the abstract tasks of 
the mind; the other asks whether he is not better pre- 
pared by being given the special skill and training of a 
particular calling or profession, an immediate drill in 
the work he is to do after he graduates, than by being 
made a master of his own mind in the more general 
fields of knowledge to which his subsequent calling will 
be related, in all probability, only as every undertaking 
is related to the general thought and experience of the 
world. 


162 COLLEGE AND STATE 


“Learning” is not involved. No one has ever dreamed 
of imparting learning to undergraduates. It cannot be 
done in four years. To become a man of learning is 
the enterprise of a lifetime. ‘The issue does not rise 
to that high ground. The question is merely this: do 
we wish college to be, first of all and chiefly, a place of 
mental discipline or only a school of general experience; 
and, if we wish it to be a place of mental discipline, of 
what sort do we wish the discipline to be,—a general 
awakening and release of the faculties, or a preliminary 
initiation into the drill of a particular vocation? 

These are questions which go to the root of the mat- 
ter. They admit of no simple and confident answer. 
Their roots spring out of life and all its varied sources. 
To reply to them, therefore, involves an examination 
of modern life and an assessment of the part an edu- 
cated man ought to play in it,—an analysis which no 
man may attempt with perfect self-confidence. ‘The life 
of our day is a very complex thing which no man can 
pretend to comprehend in its entirety. 

But some things are obvious enough concerning it. 
There is an uncommon challenge to effort in the mod- 
ern world, and all the achievements to which it chal- 
lenges are uncommonly difficult. Individuals are yoked 
together in modern enterprise by a harness which is both 
new and inelastic. —The man who understands only some 
single process, some single piece of work which he has 
been set to do, will never do anything else, and is apt 
to be deprived at almost any moment of the oppor- 
tunity to do even that, because processes change, indus- 
try undergoes instant revolutions. New inventions, 
fresh discoveries, alterations in the markets of the world 
throw accustomed methods and the men who are accus- 
tomed to them out of date and use without pause or 
pity. The man of special skill may be changed into an 
unskilled laborer overnight. Moreover, it is a day in 
which no enterprise stands alone or independent, but 
is related to every other and feels changes in all parts 


COLLEGE AND STATE 163 


of the globe. The men with mere skill, with mere tech- 
nical knowledge, will be mere servants perpetually, and 
may at any time become useless servants, their skill gone 
out of use and fashion. ‘The particular thing they do 
may become unnecessary or may be so changed that they 
cannot comprehend or adjust themselves to the change. 

These, then, are the things the modern world must 
have in its trained men, and I do not know where else 
it is to get them if not from its educated men and the. 
occasional self-developed genius of an exceptional man 
here and there. It needs, at the top, not a few, but 
many men with the power to organize and guide. The 
college is meant to stimulate in a considerable number 
of men what would be stimulated in only a few if we 
were to depend entirely upon nature and circumstance. 
Below the ranks of generalship and guidance, the mod- 
ern world needs for the execution of its varied and difh- 
cult business a very much larger number of men with 
great capacity and readiness for the rapid and concen- 
trated exertion of a whole series of faculties: planning 
faculties as well as technical skill, the ability to handle 
men as well as to handle tools and correct processes, 
faculties of adjustment and adaptation as well as of 
precise execution,—men of resource as well as knowl- 
edge. These are the athletes, the athletes of faculty, of 
which our generation most stands in need. All through 
its ranks, besides, it needs masterful men who can ac- 
quire a working knowledge of many things readily, 
quickly, intelligently, and with exactness,—things they 
had not foreseen or prepared themselves for before- 
hand, and for which they could not have prepared them- 
selves beforehand. Quick apprehension, quick compre- 
hension, quick action are what modern life puts a pre- 
mium upon,—a readiness to turn this way or that and 
not lose force or momentum. 

To me, then, the question seems to be, Shall the lad 
who goes to college go there for the purpose of getting 
ready to be a servant merely, a servant who will be no- 


164 COLLEGE AND STATE 


body and who may become useless, or shall he go there 
for the purpose of getting ready to be a master adven- 
turer in the field of modern opportunity ? 

We must expect hewers of wood and drawers of 
water to come out of the colleges in their due propor- 
tion, of course, but I take it for granted that even the 
least gifted of them did not go to college with the ambi- 
tion to be nothing more. And yet one has hardly made 
the statement before he begins to doubt whether he 
can safely take anything for granted. Part of the very 
question we are discussing is the ambition with which 
young men now go to college. It is a day when a 
college course has become fashionable,—but not for 
the purpose of learning, not for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a definite preparation for anything,—no such pur- 
pose could become fashionable. The clientage of our 
colleges has greatly changed since the time when most 
of the young men who resorted to them did so with a 
view to entering one or other of the learned professions. 
Young men who expect to go into business of one kind 
or another now outnumber among our undergraduates 
those who expect to make some sort of learning the basis 
of their work throughout life; and I dare say that they 
generally go to college without having made any very 
definite analysis of their aim and purpose in going. 
Their parents seem to have made as little. 

The enormous increase of wealth in the country in 
recent years, too, has had its effect upon the colleges,— 
not in the way that might have been expected,—not, as 
yet, by changing the standard of life to any very notice- 
able extent or introducing luxury and extravagance and 
vicious indulgence. College undergraduates have usu- 
ally the freshness of youth about them, out of which 
there springs a wholesome simplicity, and it is not easy 
to spoil them or to destroy their natural democracy. 
They make a life of their own and insist upon the main- 
tenance of its standards. But the increase of wealth 
has brought into the colleges, in rapidly augmenting 


COLLEGE AND STATE 165 


numbers, the sons of very rich men, and lads who ex- 
pect to inherit wealth are not as easily stimulated to 
effort, are not as apt to form definite and serious pur- 
poses, as those who know that they must whet their 
wits for the struggle of life. 

There was a time when the mere possession of wealth 
conferred distinction; and when wealth confers distinc- 
tion it is apt to breed a sort of consciousness of oppor- 
tunity and responsibility in those who possess it and 
incline them to seek serious achievement. But that time 
is long past in America. Wealth is common. And, by 
the same token, the position of the lad who is to inherit 
it is a peculiarly disadvantageous one, if the standard 
of success is to rise above mediocrity. Wealth removes 
the necessity for effort, and yet effort is necessary for 
the attainment of distinction, and very great effort at 
that, in the modern world, as J have already pointed out. 
It would look as if the ordinary lad with expectations 
were foredoomed to obscurity; for the ordinary lad will 
not exert himself unless he must. 

We live in an age in which no achievement is to be 
cheaply had. All the cheap achievements, open to ama- 
teurs, are exhausted and have become commonplace. 
Adventure, for example, is no longer extraordinary: 
which is another. way of saying that it is commonplace. 
Any amateur may seek and find adventure; but it has 
been sought and had in all its kinds. Restless men, idle 
men, chivalrous men, men drawn on by mere curiosity 
and men drawn on by love of the knowledge that lies 
outside books and laboratories, have crossed the whole 
face of the habitable globe in search of it, ferreting it 
out in corners even, following its bypaths and beating 
its coverts, and it is nowhere any longer a novelty or 
distinction to have discovered and enjoyed it. The 
whole round of pleasure, moreover, has been exhausted 
time out of mind, and most of it discredited as not 
pleasure after all, but just an expensive counterfeit; so 
that many rich people have been driven to devote them- 


166 COLLEGE AND STATE 


selves to expense regardless of pleasure. No new pleas- 
ure, I am credibly informed, has been invented within 
the memory of man. For every genuine thrill and satis- 
faction, therefore, we are apparently, in this sophisti- 
cated world, shut in to work, to modifying and quick- 
ening the life of the age. If college be one of the 
highways to life and achievement, it must be one of the 
highways to work. 

The man who comes out of college into the modern 
world must, therefore, have got out of it, if he has not 
wasted four vitally significant years of his life, a quick- 
ening and a training which will make him in some de- 
gree a master among men. If he has got less, college 
was not worth his while. To have made it worth his 
while he must have got such a preparation and develop- 
ment of his faculties as will give him movement as well 
as mere mechanical efficiency in affairs complex, difficult, 
and subject to change. The word efficiency has in our 
day the power to think at the centre of it, the power 
of independent movement and initiative. It is not 
merely the suitability to be a good tool, it is the power 
to wield tools, and among the tools are men and circum- 
stances and changing processes of industry, changing 
phases of life itself. There should be technical schools 
a great many and the technical schools of America 
should be among the best in the world. The men they 
train are indispensable. The modern world needs more 
tools than managers, more workmen than master work- 
men. But even the technical. schools must have some 
thought of mastery and adaptability in their processes; 
and the colleges, which are not technical schools, should 
think of that chiefly. We must distinguish what the 
college is for, without disparaging any other school, of 
any other kind. It is for the training of the men who 
are to rise above the ranks. 

That is what a college is for. What it does, what 
it requires of its undergraduates and of its teachers, 
should be adjusted to that conception. The very state- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 167 


ment of the object, which must be plain to all who make 
any distinction at all between a college and a technical 
school, makes it evident that the college must subject 
its men to a general intellectual training which will be 
narrowed to no one point of view, to no one vocation 
or calling. It must release and quicken as many facul- 
ties of the mind as possible,—and not only release and 
quicken them but discipline and strengthen them also 
by putting them to the test of systematic labor. Work, 
definite, exacting, long continued, but not narrow or 
petty or merely rule of thumb, must be its law of life 
for those who would pass its gates and go out with its 
authentication. 

By a general training I do not mean vague spaces of 
study, miscellaneous fields of reading, a varied smatter- 
ing of a score of subjects and the thorough digestion of 
none. The field of modern knowledge is extremely 
wide and varied. After a certain number of really 
fundamental subjects have been studied in the schools, 
the college undergraduate must be offered a choice of 
the route he will travel in carrying his studies further. 
He cannot be shown the whole body of knowledge 
within a single curriculum. There is no longer any sin- 
gle highway of learning. The roads that traverse its 
vast and crowded spaces are not even parallel, and four 
years is too short a time in which to search them all 
out. But there is a general programme still possible 
by which the college student can be made acquainted with 
the field of modern learning by sample, by which he 
can be subjected to the several kinds of mental disci- 
pline,—in philosophy, in some one of the great sciences, 
in some one of the great languages which carry the 
thought of the world, in history and in politics, which 
is its framework,—which will give him valid naturaliza- 
tion as a citizen of the world of thought, the world 
of educated men,—and no smatterer merely, able barely 
to spell its constitution out, but a man who has really 
comprehended and made use of its chief intellectual 


168 COLLEGE AND STATE 


processes and is ready to lay his mind alongside its tasks 
with some confidence that he can master them and can 
understand why and how they are to be performed. 
This is the general training which should be character- 
istic of the college, and the men who undergo it ought 
to be made to undergo it with deep seriousness and 
diligent labour; not as soft amateurs with whom learn- 
ing and its thorough tasks are side interests merely, but 
as those who approach life with the intention of becom- 
ing professionals in its fields of achievement. 

Just now, where this is attempted, it seems to fail of 
success. College men, it is said, and often said with 
truth, come out undisciplined, untrained, unfitted for 
what they are about to undertake. It is argued, there- 
fore, that what they should have been given was spe- 
cial vocational instruction; that if they had had that they 
would have been interested in their work while they were 
undergraduates, would have taken it more seriously, 
and would have come out of college ready to be used, 
as they now cannot be. No doubt that is to be pre- 
ferred to a scattered and aimless choice of studies, and 
no doubt what the colleges offer is miscellaneous and 
aimless enough in many cases; but, at best, these are 
very hopeful assumptions on the part of those who 
would convert our colleges into vocational schools. 
They are generally put forward by persons who do not 
know how college life and work are now organized 
and conducted. I do not wonder that they know little 
of what has happened. The whole thing is of very re- 
cent development, at any rate in its elaborate com- 
plexity. It is a growth, as we now see it, of the last 
ten or twelve years; and even recent graduates of our 
colleges would rub their eyes incredulously to see it if 
they were to stand again on the inside and look at it 
intimately. 

What has happened is, in general terms, this: that 
the work of the college, the work of its classrooms and 
laboratories, has become the merely formal and com- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 169 


pulsory side of its life, and that a score of other things, 
lumped under the term “undergraduate activities,” have 
become the vital, spontaneous, absorbing realities for 
nine out of every ten men who go to college. These 
activities embrace social, athletic, dramatic, musical, lit- 
erary, religious, and professional organizations of every 
kind, besides many organized for mere amusement and 
some, of great use and dignity, which seek to exercise 
a general oversight and sensible direction of college 
ways and customs. ‘Those which consume the most 
time are, of course, the athletic, dramatic, and musical 
clubs, whose practices, rehearsals, games, and perform- 
ances fill the term time and the brief vacations alike, 
But it is the social organizations into which the thought, 
the energy, the initiative, the enthusiasm of the largest 
number of men go, and go in lavish measure. 

The chief of these social organizations are residen- 
tial families,—fraternities, clubs, groups of house-mates 
of one kind or another,—in which, naturally enough, all 
the undergraduate interests, all the undergraduate ac- 
tivities of the college have their vital centre. The 
natural history of their origin and development is very 
interesting. They grew up very normally. They were 
necessary because of what the college did not do. 

Every college in America, at any rate every college 
outside a city, has tried to provide living rooms for its 
undergraduates, dormitories in which they can live and 
sleep and do their work outside the classroom and the 
laboratory. Very few colleges whose numbers have 
grown rapidly have been able to supply dormitories 
enough for all their students, and some have deliberately 
abandoned the attempt, but in many of them a very 
considerable proportion of the undergraduates live on 
the campus, in college buildings. It is a very wholesome 
thing that they should live thus under the direct influ- 
ence of the daily life of such a place and, at least in 
legal theory, under the authority of the university of 
which the college forms a principal part. But the con- 


170 COLLEGE AND STATE 
pi 


nection between the dormitory life and the real life o 
the university, its intellectual tasks and disciplines, its 
outlook upon the greater world of thought and action 
which lies beyond, far beyond, the boundaries of cam- 
pus and classroom, is very meagre and shadowy indeed. 
It is hardly more than atmospheric, and the atmosphere 
is very attenuated, perceptible only by the most sensi- 
tive. 

Formerly, in more primitive, and I must say less de- 
sirable, days than these in which we have learned the 
full vigour of freedom, college tutors and proctors lived 
in the dormitories and exercised a precarious authority. 
The men were looked after in their rooms and made 
to keep hours and observe rules. But those days are 
happily gone by. The system failed of its object. The 
lads were mischievous and recalcitrant, those placed in 
authority over them generally young and unwise; and 
the rules were odious to those whom they were meant 
to restrain. [here was the atmosphere of the boarding- 
school about the buildings, and of a boarding-school 
whose pupils had outgrown it. Life in college dormi- 
tories is much pleasanter now and much more orderly, 
because it is free and governed only by college opinion, 
which is a real, not a nominal, master. The men come 
and go as they please and have little consciousness of 
any connection with authority or with the governing 
influences of the university in their rooms, except that 
the university is their landlord and makes rules such as 
a landlord may make. 

Formerly, in more primitive and less pleasant days, 
the college provided a refectory or “commons” where 
all undergraduates had their meals, a noisy family. It 
was part of the boarding-school life; and the average 
undergraduate had outgrown it as consciously as he 
had outgrown the futile discipline of the dormitory. 
Now nothing of the kind is attempted. Here and there, 
in connection with some large college which has found 
that the boarding-houses and restaurants of the town 


COLLEGE AND STATE 171 


have been furnishing poor food at outrageous prices to 
those of its undergraduates who could not otherwise 
provide for themselves, will be found a great ‘‘com- 
mons,” at which hundreds of men take their meals, amid 
the hurly-burly of numbers, without elegance or much 
comfort, but nevertheless at a well-spread table where 
the food is good and the prices moderate. The under- 
graduate may use it or not as he pleases. It is merely 
a great cooperative boarding-place, bearing not even 
a family resemblance to the antique “‘commons.” It 
is one of the conveniences of the place. It has been 
provided by the university authorities, but it might 
have been provided in some other way and have been 
quite independent of them; and it is usually under un- 
dergraduate management. 

Those who do not like the associations or the fare 
of such a place provide for themselves elsewhere, in 
clubs or otherwise,—generally in fraternity houses. At 
most colleges there is no such common boarding-place, 
and all must shift for themselves. It is this necessity 
in the one case and desire in the other that has created 
the chief complexity now observable in college life and 
which has been chiefly instrumental in bringing about 
that dissociation of undergraduate life from the deeper 
and more permanent influences of the university which 
has of recent years become so marked and so significant. 

Fraternity chapters were once—and that not so very 
long ago—merely groups of undergraduates who had 
bound themselves together by the vows of various 
secret societies which had spread their branches among 
the colleges. They had their fraternity rooms, their 
places of meeting; they were distinguished by well- 
known badges and formed little coteries distinguish- 
able enough from the general body of undergraduates, 
as they wished to be; but in all ordinary matters they 
shared the common life of the place. The daily ex- 
periences of the college life they shared with their fel- 
lows of all kinds and all connections, in an easy democ- 


7 


Eye COLLEGE AND STATE 


racy; their contacts were the common contacts of the 
classroom and the laboratory not only, but also of the 
boarding-house table and of all the usual undergraduate 
resorts. Members of the same fraternity were naturally 
enough inclined to associate chiefly with one another, 
and were often, much too often, inclined, in matters 
of college ‘‘politics,’” to act as a unit and in their own 
interest; but they did not live separately. ‘They did 
not hold aloof or constitute themselves separate fam- 
ilies, living apart in their own houses, in privacy. Now 
all that is changed. Every fraternity has its own house, 
equipped as a complete home. ‘The fraternity houses 
will often be the most interesting and the most beauti- 
ful buildings a visitor will be shown when he visits the 
college. In them members take all their meals, in them 
they spend their leisure hours and often do their read- 
ing,—for each house has its library—and in them many 
of the members, as many as can be accommodated, have 
their sleeping rooms and live, because the college has 
not dormitories enough to lodge them or because they 
prefer lodging outside the dormitories. In colleges 
where there are no fraternities, clubs of one sort or an- 
other take their places, build homes of their own, enjoy 
a similar privacy and separateness, and constitute the 
centre of all that is most comfortable and interesting and 
attractive in undergraduate life. 

I am pointing out this interesting and very important 
development, not for the purpose of criticising it, but 
merely to explain its natural history and the far-reaching 
results it has brought about. ‘The college having de- 
termined, wisely enough, some generation or two ago, 
not to be any longer a boarding-school, has resolved it- 
self into a mere teaching machine, with the necessary 
lecture rooms and laboratories attached and sometimes 
a few dormitories, which it regards as desirable but not 
indispensable, and has resigned into the hands of the 
undergraduates themselves the whole management of 
their life outside the classroom; and not only its man- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 173 


agement but also the setting up of all its machinery of 
every kind,—as much as they please,—and the consti- 
tution of its whole environment, so that teachers and 
pupils are not members of one university body but con- 
stitute two bodies sharply distinguished,—and the un- 
dergraduate body the more highly organized and inde- 
pendent of the two. They parley with one another, 
but they do not live with one another, and it is much 
easier for the influence of the highly organized and 
very self-conscious undergraduate body to penetrate the 
faculty than it is for the influence of the faculty to 
permeate the undergraduates. 

It was inevitable it should turn out so in the circum- 
stances. I do not wonder that the consequences were 
not foreseen and that the whole development has crept 
upon us almost unawares. But the consequences have 
been very important and very far-reaching. It is easy 
now to see that if you leave undergraduates entirely to 
themselves, to organize their own lives while in col- 
lege as they please,—and organize it in some way they 
must if thus cast adrift,—that life, and not the deeper 
interests of the university, will presently dominate their 
thoughts, their imaginations, their favourite purposes. 
And not only that. ‘The work of administering this 
complex life, with all its organizations and independent 
interests, successfully absorbs the energies, the initiative, 
the planning and originating powers of the best men 
among the undergraduates. It is no small task. It 
would tax and absorb older men; and only the finer, 
more spirited, more attractive, more original and effec- 
tive men are fitted for it or equal to it, where leader- 
ship goes by gifts of personality as well as by ability. 
The very men the teacher most desires to get hold of 
and to enlist in some enterprise of the mind, the very 
men it would most reward him to instruct and whose 
training would count for most in leadership outside of 
college, in the country at large, and for the promo- 
tion of every interest the nation has, the natural leaders 


a 


174 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and doers, are drawn off and monopolized by these nec- 
essary and engaging undergraduate undertakings. The 
born leaders and managers and originators are drafted 
off to ‘‘run the college” (it is in fact nothing less), and 
the classroom, the laboratory, the studious conference 
with instructors get only the residuum of their attention, 
only what can be spared of their energy—are secondary 
matters where they ought to come first. It is the or- 
ganization that is at fault, not the persons who enter 
into it and are moulded by it. It cannot turn out other- 
wise in the circumstances. ‘The side shows are so nu- 
merous, so diverting,—so important, if you will—that 
they have swallowed up the circus, and those who per- 
form in the main tent must often whistle for their 
audiences, discouraged and humiliated. 

Such is college life nowadays, and such its relation to 
college work and the all-important intellectual interests 
which the colleges are endowed and maintained to fos- 
ter. I need not stop to argue that the main purposes 
of education cannot be successfully realized under such 
conditions. I need not stop to urge that the college 
was not and can never be intended for the uses it is 
now being put to. A young man can learn to become 
the manager of a football team or of a residential 
club, the leader of an orchestra or a glee club, the 
star of amateur theatricals, an oarsman or a chess 
player without putting himself to the trouble or 
his parents to the expense of four years at a college. 
These are innocent enough things for him to do and to 
learn, though hardly very important in the long run; 
they may, for all I know, make for efficiency in some 
of the simpler kinds of business; and no wise man who 
knows college lads would propose to shut them off from 
them or wish to discourage their interest in them. All 
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, not only, but 
may make him a vicious boy as well. Amusement, ath- 
letic games, the zest of contest and competition, the 
challenge there is in most college activities to the in- 


COLLEGE AND STATE rey 


stinct of initiative and the gifts of leadership and 
achievement,—all these are wholesome means of stimu- 
lation, which keep young men from going stale and 
turning to things that demoralize. But they should 
not assume the front of the stage where more serious 
and lasting interests are to be served. Men cannot 
be prepared by them for modern life. 

The college is meant for a severer, more definite 
discipline than this: a discipline which will fit men for 
the contests and achievements of an age whose every 
task is conditioned upon some intelligent and effective 
use of the mind, upon some substantial knowledge, some 
special insight, some trained capacity, some penetra- 
tion which comes from study, not from natural readi- 
ness or mere practical experience. 

The side shows need not be abolished. They need 
not be cast out or even discredited. But they must 
be subordinated. They must be put in their natural 
place as diversions, and ousted from their present dig- 
nity and preéminence as occupations. 

And this can be done without making of the college 
again a boarding-school. The characteristic of the 
boarding-school is that its pupils are in all things in 
tutelage, are under masters at every turn of their life, 
must do as they are bidden, not in the performance 
of their set tasks only, but also in all their comings and 
goings. It is this characteristic that made it impossible 
and undesirable to continue the life of the boarding- 
school into the college, where it is necessary that the 
pupil should begin to show his manhood and make his 
own career. No one who knows what wholesome and 
regulated freedom can do for young men ought ever 
to wish to hail them back to the days of childish dis- 
cipline and restraint of which the college of our grand- 
fathers was typical. But a new discipline is desirable, 
is absolutely necessary, if the college is to be recalled 
to its proper purpose, its bounden duty. It cannot per- 
form its duty as it is now organized. 


176 COLLEGE AND STATE 


The fundamental thing to be accomplished in the new 
organization is, that, instead of being the heterogeneous 
congeries of petty organizations it now is, instead of be- 
ing allowed to go to pieces in a score of fractions free 
to cast off from the whole as they please, it should be 
drawn together again into a single university family 
of which the teachers shall be as natural and as intimate 
‘members as the undergraduates. ‘The “‘life’” of the 
college should not be separated from its chief purposes 
and most essential objects, should not be contrasted with 
its duties and in rivalry with them. The two should be 
but two sides of one and the same thing; the association 
of men, young and old, for serious mental endeavour 
and also, in the intervals of work, for every wholesome 
sport and diversion. Undergraduate life should not 
be in rivalry and contrast with undergraduate duties: 
undergraduates should not be merely in attendance upon 
the college, but parts of it on every side of its life, very 
conscious and active parts. They should consciously 
live its whole life,—not under masters, as in school, and 
yet associated in some intimate daily fashion with their 
masters in learning: so that learning may not seem one 
thing and life another. The organizations whose ob- 
jects lie outside study should be but parts of the whole, 
not set against it, but included within it. 

All this can be accomplished by a comparatively 
simple change of organization which will make master 
and pupil members of the same free, self-governed fam- 
ily, upon natural terms of intimacy. But how it can be 
done is not our present interest. “That is another story. 
It is our present purpose merely to be clear what a col- 
lege is for. That, perhaps, I have now pointed out 
with sufficient explicitness. I have shown the incom- 
patibility of the present social organization of our col- 
leges with the realization of that purpose only to add 
emphasis to the statement of what that purpose is. 
Once get that clearly established in the mind of the 
country, and the means of realizing it will readily and 


COLLEGE AND STATE 177 


quickly enough be found. The object of the college is 
intellectual discipline and moral enlightenment, and it 
is the immediate task of those who administer the col- 
leges of the country to find the means and the organiza- 
tion by which that object can be attained. Education 
is a process and, like all other processes, has its proper 
means and machinery. It does not consist in courses of 
study. It consists of the vital assimilation of knowl- 
edge, and the mode of life, for the college as for the 
individual, is nine parts of the digestion. 


THE MINISTRY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


ADDRESS BEFORE THE MCCORMICK THEOLOGICAL SEM- 
INARY AT CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 2, 1909. FROM 
THE “‘PROCEEDINGS” OF THE HISTORICAL CELEBRA- 
TION OF THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
ORIGIN OF THE SEMINARY. 


I FEEL that it is a privilege and a responsibility to 

bring this interesting programme to a close, particu- 
larly when I know how simple the message I bring to 
you will turn out to be. 

It seems singular that each generation should ask 
itself for what purpose the gospel had come into the 
world, and yet it is necessary, if we would understand 
our own purposes, that we should ask ourselves in our 
own generation that fundamental question. No doubt 
Christianity came into the world to save the world. 
We are privileged to live in the midst of many manifes- 
tations of the great service that Christianity does to 
society, to the world that now is. All of the finest 
things that have made history illustrious seem to have 
proceeded from the spirit of Christ. All those things 
which distinguish modern civilization are things which 
it has derived from the spirit of the church, which, 
when it has remembered Christ, has reminded the world 
of the ideals according to which it should serve man- 
kind; should serve all the ends for which men live to- 
gether; and in our own day in particular there are a 
great many notable movements afoot which are mani- 
festly touched—at their root, at any rate—with the 
spirit of Christ. 

- But Christianity did not come into the world merely 
to save the world, merely to set crooked things straight, 
178 


COLLEGE AND STATE 179 


merely to purify social motives, merely to elevate the 
programme according to which we live, merely to put new 
illuminations into the plans we form for the regeneration 
of the life we are living now. The end and object of 
Christianity is the individual, and the individual is the 
vehicle of Christianity. “There can be no other vehicle; 
no organization is in any proper sense Christian; no 
organization can be said itself to love the person and 
example of Christ. No organization can hold itself 
in that personal relationship to the Saviour in which the 
individual must hold himself if he would be indeed one 
who lives according to the Christian precepts. 

You know what the distinguishing characteristic of 
modern society is, that it has submerged the individual 
as much as that is possible. In economic society par- 
ticularly we see men organized in great societies and 
corporations and organic groups, in which each indi- 
vidual member feels that his own conscience is pooled 
and subordinated, and in codperating with which men; 
as you know, constantly excuse themselves from the 
exercise of their own independent judgment in matters 
of conscience. The great danger of our own day, as it 
seems to me, is that men will compound their conscien- 
tious scruples on the ground that they are not free to 
move independently; that they are simply parts of a 
great whole, and that they must move with that whole, 
whether they wish to or not. For they say, ‘The pen- 
alty will be that we shall be absolutely crushed.’’ The 
organization must dictate to us, if we be members of a 
‘corporation; if we be members of a union, the union; 
if we be members of a society of whatever kind, the 
programme of the society must dominate us. It was easy 
in a simpler age to apply morals to individual conduct, 
because individuals acted separately and by a private 
and individual choice, but we have not adjusted our 
morals to the present organization of society; and what- 
ever you may say in general terms with regard to the 
obligation of the individual to exercise his own con- 


180 COLLEGE AND STATE 


science, you will find yourself very much put to it if a 
friend comes to you with an individual problem of 
conduct and asks you how in the circumstances you think 
~ he ought to act. 

It sometimes seems like a choice between breaking 
up the programme of the organization and subordinating 
your own conscience. I have had men tell me who 
were in the profession to which I was originally bred 
—the profession of the law—that it is extremely difh- 
cult to thread their way amidst a thousand complicated 
difficulties in giving advice to the great bodies of men 
whom they are called upon to advise, and to discriminate 
between what is legally safe and what is morally justif- 
able. 

It is in this age that the preacher must preach. The 
preacher must find the individual and enable the indi- 
vidual to find himself, and in order to do that he must 
understand and thread the intricacies of modern society. 

It was my privilege to speak upon a similar occasion 
to this, not many months ago, and there to take as my 
theme the necessity the minister is under to enable the 
individual to find himself amid the intricacies of modern 
thought. ‘This is an age of obscured counsel about 
many fundamental things, and the average individual 
cannot unassisted know his place in the spiritual order 
of the universe as it is now interpreted by multitudinous 
and differing voices. ‘he minister has the very difficult 
and responsible task of enabling the individual to find 
himself amidst modern thought. ‘This evening I must 
call your attention to the fact that it is also his business 
to enable the individual to find himself amid modern ac- 
‘ tion. There are daily choices to be made, and the 
individual must make them at the risk of the integrity 
of his own soul. He must understand that he cannot 
shift the responsibility upon the organization. The 
minister must address himself to him as his counsellor 
and friend and spiritual companion; they must take 
counsel together how a man is to live with uplifted head 


COLLEGE AND STATE 181 


and pure conscience in our own complicated age, not 
allowing the crowd to run away with or over him. 

You know that the law has shirked this duty. Sooner . 
or later the duty must be faced. ‘The law tries now- 
adays to deal with men in groups and companies, to 
punish them as corporate wholes. It is an idle under- 
taking. It never will be successfully accomplished. The 
only responsibility to which human society has ever 
responded or ever will respond, is the responsibility of 
the individual. ‘The law must find the individual in 
the modern corporation and apply its demands and its 
punishments to him if we are to check any of the vital 
abuses which now trouble the world of business. You: 
may pile fines never so high in the public treasury, and 
corporations will still continue to do things that they 
ought not to do, unless you check them by taking hold 
of the individuals who are ultimately responsible for 
their policy. While the law waits to find this out, the - 
minister cannot wait. He must attempt and must ac- 
complish what the law declines, for men are dying every 
day. They are going to their long reckoning. They 
cannot wait for the law to find the way of the gospel. 
The minister must be present with them while they live, 
and comfort them when they die, and reassure them of 
the standards of their conduct. 

Every great age of the world of which I have ever 
heard was an age not characterized chiefly by codpera- 
tive effort, but characterized chiefly by the initiative of 
the indomitable individual. You cannot give any age 
distinction by the things that everybody does. Each 
age derives its distinction from the things that individ- 
uals choose to be singular in doing of their own choice. 
Every turning point in the history of mankind has been 
pivoted upon the choice of an individual, when some 
spirit that would not be, dominated stood stiff in its 
independence and said: “I go this way. Let any man 
go another way who pleases.” 

We die separately. We do not die by corporations. 


182 COLLEGE AND STATE 


We do not die by societies. We do not withdraw into 
our closets by companies. Every man has to live with 
himself privately—and it is a most uncomfortable life. 
He has to remember what he did during the day, the 
things that he yielded to, the points that he compro- 
mised, the things that he shrugged his shoulders at 
and let go by when he knew that he ought to have 
uttered a protest and stood stiff in declining to cooper- 
ate. And this lonely dying is the confession of our 
consciousness that we are individually and separately 
and personally related to the ideals which we pursue, 
and to the persons to whom we should stand loyal. 
Corporations do not and cannot love Christ. Some 
individuals that compose them do, but those individuals 
do not love him truly who coéperate in doing the things 
that those associated with them do that are inconsistent 
with the law of Christ. 

I have heard a great deal of preaching, and I have 
heard most of it with respect; but I have heard a great 
deal of it with disappointment, because I felt that it 
had nothing to do with me. So many preachers whom 
I hear use the gospel in order to expound some of the 
difficulties of modern thought, but only now and again 
does a minister direct upon me personally the raking 
fire of examination, which consists in taking out of the 
Scriptures individual, concrete examples of men situated 
as I suppose myself to be situated, and searching me 
with the question, “‘How are you individually measur- 
ing up to the standard which in Holy Writ we know to 
have been exacted of this man and that?” 

I am one of those who remember with a great deal 
of admiration the work of that extraordinary man, 
Mr. Moody. He was not a learned man, as you know, 
and the doctrine that he preached was always doctrine 
which seemed to have inevitably something personal to 
do with you if you were in the audience. Whenever I 
came into contact with Mr. Moody I got the impression 
that he was coming separately into contact with one 


COLLEGE AND STATE 183 


person at atime. I remember once that I was in a very 
plebeian place. I was in a barber shop, lying in a chair, 
and I was presently aware that a personality had entered 
the room. A man came quietly in upon the same errand 
that I had come in on, and sat in the chair next to me. 
Every word that he uttered, though it was not in the 
least didactic, showed a personal and vital interest in 
the man who was serving him. Before I got through 
with what was being done to me I was aware that I 
had attended an evangelical service, because Mr. Moody 
was in the next chair. I purposely lingered in the room 
after he left and noted the singular effect his visit had 
upon the barbers in that shop. ‘They talked in under- 
tones. ‘They did not know his name. They did not 
know who had been there, but they knew that some- 
thing had elevated their thought. I left the place as I 
should have left a place of worship. Mr. Moody - 
always sought and found the individual, and that is the 
particular thing which the minister must do. 

As I see the opportunity of the church, it is to assist » 
in bringing in another great age. Ministers are not 
going to assist very much in solving the social prob- 
lems of the time, as such. Their attitude toward the 
social problems of the time is always supposed to be a 
professional attitude, and they are not of as much assist- 
ance in that matter as the average serious-minded lay- 
man is. But the opportunity of the church is to call in 
tones that cannot be mistaken to every individual to 
think of his own place in the world and his own respon- 
sibility, and to resist the temptations of his particular 
life in such ways that if he be central to anything the 
whole world will feel the thrill of the fact that there is 
one immovable thing in it, a moral principle embodied 
in a particular man. . 

This is an age of conformity. It is an age when. 
everybody goes about seeking to say what everybody 
else is saying. Winds of opinion creep through the 
country. Formulas are repeated with all sorts of dex- 


184 COLLEGE AND STATE 


terity in their mere variation. Men have caught the 
_ gregarious habit of conscience as well as of mind, and 
you will find that nothing heartens an audience in a 
modern age more than to hear an individual, whether 
he has anything new to say or not, get up and say some- 
thing that he really means, singly and by himself, with- 
out the least care whether anybody else thinks it and 
means it or not. A friend of mine who was of such a 
sort was congratulated for his courage in speaking the 
things that he really thought. He said: ‘‘Why, I am 
not aware of any courage. It would take courage to do 
the other thing. If I said the things I did not mean, I 
would say very contradictory things at different times; 
I would get all tied up, and I should not know how to 
get out.” The only way to avoid that is by echoing 
everything else that everybody else says. There was a 
cynical saying of Dean Swift’s, ‘If you wish to be con- 
sidered a man of sense, always agree with the person 
with whom you are conversing.” That is a very 
modern, and also, I dare say, a very ancient way of 
gaining a reputation of being a man of sense. But it 
is practised at the peril of your soul, which is a con- 
sideration worth thinking of. 

I have often preached in my political utterances the 
doctrine of expediency, and I am an unabashed disciple 
of that doctrine. What I mean to say is, you cannot 
carry the world forward as fast as a few select indi- 
viduals think. ‘The individuals who have the vigour to 
lead must content themselves with a slackened pace and 
go only so fast as they can be followed. They must not 
be impracticable. They must not be impossible. They 
must not insist upon getting at once what they know 
they cannot get. But that is not inconsistent with their 
telling the world in very plain terms whither it is 
bound and what the ultimate and complete truth of the 
matter, as it seems to them, is. You cannot make any 
progress unless you know whither you are bound. The 
question is not a pace. That is a matter of expediency, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 185 


not of direction; that is not a matter of principle. Where 
the individual should be indomitable is in the choice of 
direction, saying: “I will not bow down to the golden 
calf of fashion. I will not bow down to the weak habit 
of pursuing everything that is popular, everything that 
belongs to the society to which I belong. I will insist 
on telling that society, if I think it so, that in certain 
fundamental principles it is wrong; but I won’t be fool 
enough to insist that it adopt my programme at once for 
putting it right.” What I do insist upon is, speaking 
the full truth to it and never letting it forget the truth; 
speaking the truth again and again and again with 
every variation of the theme, until men will wake 
some morning and the theme will sound familiar, and 
they will say, “Well, after all, is it not so?’ ‘That is - 
what I mean by the indomitable individual. Not the 
defiant individual, not the impracticable individual, but 
the individual who does try, and cannot be ashamed, 
and cannot be silenced; who tries to observe the fair 
manner of just speech but who will not hold his tongue. 

That is the duty of the preacher. I have noticed that ° 
there is one sort of preaching in simple congregations 
and sometimes a different sort of preaching in congrega- 
tions that are not simple. Now there cannot be two 
gospels. ‘here cannot be two ways in which individuals 
shall save themselves. And the minister ought to see 
to it that with infinite gentleness, but with absolute fear- 
lessness, every man is made to conform to the standards 
which are set up in the gospel, even though it cost him 
his reputation, even though it cost him his friends, even 
though it cost him his life. Then will come that moral 
awakening which we have been so long predicting, and 
for which we have so long waited; that rejuvenation of 
morals which comes when morals are a fresh and per- 
sonal and individual thing for every man and woman 
in every community; when the church will seem, not like 
an organization for the propagation of doctrine, but like 


186 COLLEGE AND STATE 


an organization made up of individuals every one of 
' whom is vital in the processes of life. 

I remember attending recently a missionary confer- 
ence in which we were all heartened with the plans that 
were being formed for bringing all the denominations 
in the missionary field together in a common effort. 
After all the speeches had been made and we had dis- 
persed and I was going home in the night, I thought: 
“This is a very beautiful thing that is about to happen 
in the mission field. But I hope that after it has hap- 
pened there the people who are being evangelized will 
not come here and see us, because I should not like to 
have them think we could do that thing away from home 
and could not do it at home. I should not like to have 
them think that we are divided in our Christianity where 
we live and maintain the civilization of a Christian 
nation, and are united only among those upon whom 
we look with a certain condescension, as if they could 
not understand our differences of doctrine, and there- 
fore they were not worthy the explanation.” It is, I 
suppose, a high intellectual plane upon which we think 
that we live, but we do not live upon intellectual planes 
at all; we live upon emotional planes; we live upon 
planes of resolution and not upon planes of doctrine, 
if I may put it so. And the reason that we differ so is 
that we hold ourselves too far above the practical levels 
of life and are constantly forgetting that the whole 
vitality of Christianity consists not in its texts, but in 
their translation; not in the things that we set up as 
the abstract standard, but in the actions which we 
originate as the concrete examples. 

You will see, therefore, that there is a sense in which 
the minister is set against modern society. Modern 
society is collectivist. It says, ‘Unite. The minister 
must say, ‘‘Not so. You can unite for certain temporal 
purposes, but you cannot merge your souls; and Chris- 
tianity, come what may, must be fundamentally and 
forever individualistic.’ For my part, I do not see 


COLLEGE AND STATE 187 


any promise of vitality either in the church or in society 
except upon the true basis of individualism. A nation 
is strong in proportion to the variety of its originative 
strength, and that is in proportion to the vitality of its 
individuals. It is rich in direct proportion to the inde- 
pendence of the souls of which it is made up. And so 
every promising scheme that unites us must still be 
illuminated and checked and offset by those eternal 
principles of individual responsibility which are repeated 
not only in the gospel but in human nature, in physical 
nature. 

You have loved some person very dearly. You have 
tried to merge your individuality with that person, and 
you have never succeeded. ‘There is no person linked 
spiritually so closely to you that you can share his indi- 
viduality or he can share yours. And this inexorable 
law, physical and spiritual, is the law which must be the 
guiding fact for the minister of the gospel. He must 
preach Christianity to men, not to society. He must 
preach salvation to the individual, for it is only one by 
one that we can love, and love is the law of life. And 
the only person living through whom we shall love is _ 
our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 


POLITICAL REFORM. 


SPEECH AT THE CITY CLUB OF PHILADELPHIA, NOVEM- 
BER 18, 1909. FROM THE CLOSE MANUSCRIPTS AT 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 


M&® WILSON’S theme was Political Reform. He 
said in substance: 

Political reform is not with us in America any longer 
a question of motive, but a question of means. ‘The 
desire for reform is everywhere manifest enough, and 
many thoughtful and energetic persons are devoting 
themselves to it with ardor and seriousness. But their 
efforts are resulting more often in failure than in success 
because, for some reason or other, they have not found 
methods which served their purposes or which they could 
perfect in such a way as to make their temporary success 
permanent. Our whole effort, therefore, should be, not 
to urge reform, but to master its method. 

The béte noire of all the reformers is the ‘‘political 
machine,” but the political machine cannot be put out 
of business unless a better machine is substituted for it 
or the use of machinery rendered practically unneces- 
sary. 

A better machine can hardly be found, if by a better 
machine we mean a more efficient means of controlling 
nominations and determining the operations of political 
authority. “To set up a machine which would success- 
fully rival an existing machine would necessitate the 
same minute attention to details, the same constant and 
diligent effort, the same thoroughness and efficiency of 
organization; and a rival machine as effective as the 
existing machine would in the long run be as dangerous 
and as susceptible of demoralization. Apparently, 

188 


COLLEGE AND STATE 189 


therefore, the most promising course of reform is to 
dispense as nearly as possible with machinery and so 
put all machines out of commission. 

The reason for the existence of a political machine 
is the elaborate political processes now necessary in the 
nomination and election of candidates for office. These 
processes are so elaborate as to need the skill of those 
who make their use a profession. 

Our attacks upon the machine are for the most part 
futile because they ordinarily take the form of still 
further elaboration of process. We invent some new 
form of primary, we introduce the practice of the ‘‘initi- 
ative’ and “referendum,” we create the privilege of 
“recall,” and before we are through we have given the 
voters so many things to do that they need the assistance 
of professional advisers in doing them, and can easily 
be outwitted by those very advisers in the very proc- 
esses which were meant to free them from control. 

The whole of the matter is clearly enough displayed 
in the circumstances of our ordinary elections. We give 
the voter so many persons to vote for that the ballot 
becomes a complicated thing which he has not time 
himself to prepare and which he cannot thoroughly 
understand after it has been prepared for him by the 
professional politician. It is very rare that a ballot put 
in the hands of the voter contains less than twenty-five 
names. One ballot that I have seen contained 700, was 
printed like a newspaper in compact columns, and was 
much larger than a single sheet of a newspaper. And 
the ballots devised even by ballot reformers throughout 
the country differ from this extraordinary ballot only 
in the number of names, which run from the scores to 
the hundreds. Of course, it is impossible for the ordi- 
nary voter to make discriminating choices among the 
multitude of names presented to him of persons un- 
known to him and about whom diligent inquiry will 
disclose very little. It would take a small volume to 
set before him the records of all the persons he is asked 


190 COLLEGE AND STATE 


to vote for, and he is helpless in the presence of the 
task set before him. If he tries to make nominations 
of his own, a single name of his own and his neighbours’ 
suggesting will be lost amongst the multitude on the 
ballot; and if he tries to make up an entire “‘ticket,” he 
will find himself daunted in a thousand ways by the 
dificulty of the undertaking. 

It is plain that the way of reform lies in the direction 
of simplification. If the voter is to know what he is 
about, the number of persons he is to be called upon 
to vote for must be reduced to a minimum. When it is 
so reduced, both nomination and election will become 
direct, simple, and intelligible. 

It cannot be a matter of accident that this very sim- 
plification in the process of election is characteristic of 
all the best governed cities in the world. A single ex- 
ample will serve as a type. The city of Glasgow is one 
of the best governed cities in the world. In it each 
voter is called upon to vote for only a single person, 
namely, the councilman from his ward. The Council 
thus made up from single member districts divides it- 
self into as many committees as there are branches of 
the city government. Each committee is responsible to 
the Council for the entire conduct of the department 
assigned it, makes all appointments, and is in full charge 
of the business of its department. The morning papers 
record the votes of every member, whether in Council 
or at the meeting of his committee. It is a perfectly 
simple matter for every voter to follow his council- 
man at every point in the transaction of the public busi- 
ness. If he is dissatisfied with the action of his repre- 
sentative in the city government, he can easily gather a 
group of neighbours and put someone else in nomination. 
A perfectly simple contest can be made up between the 
candidates in the field, only one of whom is to be chosen. 
The issues of the contest are obvious, and the processes 
so direct as not to need the intervention of any machine 
whatever. No machine prepares a ticket, and no ma- 


COLLEGE AND STATE IgI 


chine can confuse the voters in the processes of selec- 
tion and election. 

This simplification of process is necessary and feasi- 
ble in every part of our representative system. It is 
particularly serviceable and particularly necessary in 
the government of our cities. I believe that the Short 
Ballot is the key to the whole question of the restora- 
tion of government by the people. Its salient principles 
are these: First, a governing body as small as is con- 
sistent with efficiency; second, full administrative re- 
sponsibility lodged in that body; third, the election of 
that body by voters who are given only one or at most 
two persons to select for candidates and to vote for as 
officers. 

It is to be feared that in many of the recent changes 
in the government of American cities the governing body 
has been made too small for efhiciency. A commission 
of five persons, for example, is probably too small a 
body to master the details of the business of a consid- 
erable city. The body should be large enough to di- 
vide the work with sufficient minuteness to permit it to 
be easily mastered by those who are responsible, and 
the simplifying effect of a small body can be attained 
by reducing the number of members of that body to be 
voted for by each voter. 

The effects of this simplification are direct and verita- 
ble representation of public opinion, unmistakable re- 
sponsibility on the part of those chosen, and the de- 
struction of all machines by the simple process of making 
the business of politics so simple that there is nothing 
that necessitates the existence of a machine. 

Most Americans will remember a cartoon of Thomas 
Nast’s, often reproduced. It represents the members 
of the old Tweed Ring in New York City standing in 
a circle. Each man has his thumb pointed at his neigh- 
bour, and the title of the drawing is ‘’ Twan’t Me.” The 
cartoon was a correct representation of American city 
government, which is so arranged by our complex char- 


192 COLLEGE AND STATE 


ters that each man connected with the government can 
very plausibly disclaim responsibility for any particu- 
lar political action. We have invented a ‘° Twan’t Me” 
system of government and must reject it as soon as possi- 
ble, must substitute for it a government of direct deriva- 
tion from the people and of unmistakable responsi- 
bility, without making the very un-American mistake of 
setting up in place of a really representative body a tqo 
highly concentrated executive authority. 


LIVING PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY 


FROM ‘‘HARPER’S WEEKLY,” APRIL 9, 1910, VOL. LIV, 
PP. 9-10. 


RESIDENT WOODROW WILSON was the prin- 

cipal guest of the Democrats of Elizabeth, New 

Jersey, on March 29th. He spoke, in response to a 
toast, as follows: 

The signs and portents of the time are all certainly 
most encouraging to those who believe that the Demo- 
cratic party can be serviceable to the country at this 
juncture of its affairs. It would seem that everywhere 
the thought of men who are anxious for the welfare 
of the country is turning against the present policies and 
purposes of the Republican party and that the day when 
the Democratic party must take charge of affairs is 
almost at hand. But it would be a great mistake to 
consider these circumstances as merely a party oppor- 
tunity. 

The success of a party is not the thing which should 
be first in our thoughts, but the service of the country. 
These signs of changing public opinion should not make 
us eager for office, but eager for an opportunity to see 
the principles we believe in realized in action. Above 
all, they should lead us to reéxamine those principles, 
and to assure ourselves very definitely what it is that 
we believe, and to ask how our beliefs can be made most 
serviceable in correcting errors of policy and initiating 
measures which will meet the obvious and immediate 
needs of the day. 

The fact that our opportunity is at hand makes our 
duty the thing that we should principally consider. The 
great governments of this country, State and nation, do 

193 


194 COLLEGE AND STATE 


not exist for the purpose of affording opportunities to 
those Democrats or those Republicans who desire to 
hold office, but the Democratic and Republican parties 
alike are intended for the service of the nation. It 
would be very uncomfortable to look forward toward 
the responsibilities of success if we did not know what 
we were to do with it when it came. 

In order to determine this all-important question, 
we must remind ourselves that our duty is of the present 
and the future. We are not old men looking over our 
shoulders, recalling past difficulties, shouting old slo- 
gans, fretting over old jealousies and divisions, but men 
of our own day, looking forward, looking about us, 
studying the needs and circumstances of the nation as a 
whole, and seeking an opportunity to make our coun- 
sels heard in the affairs of the country we love. 

At least this is what I myself believe, and we shall 
in the next few months and years be able to prove 
whether it is true or not. Let me suggest one inter- 
esting proof. It will, to my mind, be proved if the 
young men of the country begin to crowd into our ranks 
and recruit our forces. The young men of the country 
are not interested in old disputes and rivalries and vari- 
eties of counsel; they want to know what we are going 
to do now and what we promise for the future, what 
hope we offer them in their careers not as politicians, 
but as men of business, interested in every affair that 
the future is to disclose. “They will be more interested 
in our programmes than in our promises. They will ex- 
pect to see the carrying out of our programmes put 
in the hands of men whom they can reasonably expect 
to carry them out. ‘They will look beyond our pro- 
fessions to our actions. If they come to us, we may 
be sure that the future is ours and that the Democratic 
party is the real choice of the nation. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 195 


DEMOCRACY’S STANDARDS 


Let us ask ourselves first, then, what our standards 
are. Why do we assure ourselves that we can advise 
and lead the country better than the Republicans can? 
What are the items of our creed that we should have 
confidence in its efficacy and believe that it will lift 
us into power and enable us to make worthy use of the 
power when we get it? Old formulas will serve us very 
ill, indeed, in answering this question. We must forget 
what the books say of us as a party and must ask our- 
selves what we say of our own real beliefs, what it is 
that puts hope in us and makes us eager to serve with 
a disinterested public spirit? 

My own answer to these searching questions would 
be, in the first place, that we have profound and abid- 
ing confidence in the people themselves. ‘The Repub- 
lican party has sought to serve the nation by showing 
its confidence in those who are the most conspicuous 
leaders of the country’s business and of its economic 
development. Whatever their thought may have been, 
their action has shown that their confidence was not 
in the views and desires of the people as a whole, but 
in the promotion of,the interests of the country at the 
hands of those who chiefly controlled its resources. It 
has been their first thought to safeguard property and 
establish enterprise. Our position, I take it, is not in 
the least hostile to property or established enterprise. 
No wise man or right-minded statesman would think of 
putting these in unnecessary jeopardy. The affairs of 
the nation stand fast in proportion as every interest is 
safeguarded and one interest is not bettered by attack- 
ing another. But our fundamental law, our constitu- 
tions themselves, afford abundant protection to property 
and established enterprise, to everything that rests upon 
valid title or legal contract. The structure of the gov- 
ernment and the fibre of our institutions are firm and 
stiff and enduring. We need not fear to strain them 


196 COLLEGE AND STATE 


by pressing forward to secure the things which are 
meant to serve the people as a whole rather than par- 
ticular vested interests. It is our privilege and our duty 
to show our faith in the people by serving them, not in 
groups and sections, but as a whole. 


THEIR JUDGMENT BIASED 


In the second place, it is our conviction that the 
interests, by which I mean the men whose energies are 
concentrated upon particular enterprises established 
under the conditions of existing law, cannot see the 
welfare of the country as a whole or in true proportion 
and perspective. ‘They stand too near their own af- 
fairs, are too much engaged upon a particular purpose, 
are too entirely immersed in the promotion of particu- 
lar interests to see the people’s interest in its entirety 
or to hold anything off at arm’s length and see how it 
stands related to the affairs of the nation as a whole. 
These things can be seen only from outside the in- 
terests, only by those whose thought it is to accommo- 
date the interests to the general welfare, whether that 
be pleasing to the interests or not. 

A third fundamental principle upon which I be- 
lieve Democratic party action should rest is that the 
individual, not the corporation, the single living person, 
not the artificial group of persons existing merely by per- 
mission of the law, is the only rightful possessor alike 
of rights and of privileges. The corporation is a con- 
venience, not a natural member of society. Society must 
be organized so that the individual will not be crushed, 
will not be unnecessarily hampered. Every legal in- 
strumentality created for his convenience, like the cor- 
poration, must be created only for his convenience and 
never for his government or suppression. 

We believe, in the fourth place, that the division 
of political power in this country as between the States 
and the Federal government and between the several 


COLLEGE AND STATE 197 


parts and organs of the Federal government itself is 
fixed in law and principle and not simply in desire and 
convenience. We are a party of law and of service only 
within the law. We believe that our constitutions are 
sufficiently liberal and elastic to serve every legitimate 
purpose of public policy. We do not believe that the 
policy of the moment or the convenience of the moment 
would ever justify us in demanding of that fundamental 
law something more than elasticity. Our consciences 
and our views of public policy alike condemn the effort 
to read into existing law what it was obviously not meant 
to contain. If we cannot serve the country under the 
law, we will ask the people to change the law. We will 
not take it upon ourselves to change it without their 
formal consent. 

But the principles are much easier to state than poli- 
cies. It is comparatively easy to say what we believe: 
it is comparatively easy to say what we desire. We have 
not lost our identity as the party of the people nor the 
party of reform. But it is quite another matter to say 
in what explicit ways we should seek to realize our 
principles in action. 

A party at once conservative in respect of the law 
and radical in respect of the service we mean to render 
the people: our policies do not cut to the alteration of 
institutions, but to the effectuation of measures, and 
it is of the first consequence that we should have a 
very definite programme as to what we mean our meas- 
ures to be. 


CHARACTER OF LEGISLATION 


I do not mean, of course, to be guilty of the ego- 
tism and audacity of putting forth a programme of spe- 
cific measures, but I do think it possible to state in very 
definite terms the character we should wish to give to 
legislation. 

In the first place, we should wish not merely to 


198 COLLEGE AND STATE 


curb the trusts, and, above all, we should not wish to 
regulate them in such a way as will make them either 
partners or creatures of the government itself. We 
should wish to square their whole action and respon- 
sibility with the general interest, regarding them not 
as objects in themselves, but merely as conveniences in 
our economic life and development. Recent proposals 
of regulation have looked too much like a wholesale 
invasion by government itself of the field of business 
management. 

It is imperatively necessary, if government is to be 
kept pure and impartial, that its officers should not 
themselves be made partners or managers of the great 
corporate enterprises through which the public is served. 
Our regulation of public interests must be legal regula- 
tion and not direct management. | 

It is bad enough to have the modern overgrown 
corporations to restrain and control. It would be in- 
finitely worse if they were combined with government 
itself, and a partnership formed which could not be 
broken up without attacking our very governors them- 
selves. 

In the second place, it is clearly our duty, so soon 
as we get the opportunity, to take the government out 
of the business of patronage, the business of granting 
favours and privileges, of arranging the laws so that 
this, that, or the other group of men may make large 
profits out of their business, and draw it back to the 
function of safeguarding rights, general, not particular, 
rights, the rights which make not so much for the ‘“‘pros- 
perity” which enables small groups of individuals to pile 
up enormous fortunes, as for a general stimulation, a 
universal opportunity for enlightenment and justice. 

I am thinking, of course, of tariff legislation. What- 
ever may be our views with regard to the policy vaguely 
called the policy of protection, it is clear that in fact 
it has long since, as dealt with by Congress, ceased to 
be a policy of protection and become a policy of patron- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 199 


age, a policy of arrangement by which particular in- 
terests in the country may be sure of their profits, 
whether the country profits by their enterprise or not. 
It is by such questionable means that the government 
has condescended to base its legislation and its system 
of taxation upon the interests not of the whole people, 
but of the particular enterprises which the leaders in 
Congress thought it profitable for their party to patron- 
ize and draw into partnership for the maintenance of 
party power. 


CAUSE OF HIGH PRICES 


We are told that the present extraordinarily high 
prices of commodities of all sorts is due not to the 
tariff, but to the fact that we are not producing enough 
to keep up with the daily demand, and that this is 
particularly true with regard to the things we eat and 
have daily need of. Take meat, for example, and see 
what the truth is. The truth is that the Meat Trust 
has been able to control the meat-market to such an 
extent that scores of ranchmen have been driven out 
of the cattle-raising business because it was unprofitable. 
The short supply of meat is due to the monopoly cre- 
ated by the Meat Trust. It is true, therefore, that 
the supply is short compared with the vast demand, 
but it has been made short by the operation of a trust 
unquestionably fostered by the legislation of the gov- 
ernment. I dare say that the same might be shown 
to be true with regard to the grains. ‘There have been 
some very interesting and disgraceful chapters of rail- 
road history which have meant that the men in con- 
trol of the capital of the country have often used the 
railways to create such disadvantage of shipment on 
the part of farmers whom they did not care to favour, 
that the shipment of grain to market became unprofit- 
able and the supply was again checked by monopoly, 
the monopoly of the bigger shippers. 


Byes COLLEGE AND STATE 


In the third place, it is one of the chief duties of 
the Democratic party to initiate such reforms, alike in 
local and in Federal government, as will secure econ- 
omy, responsibility, honesty, fidelity. The processes of 
reform which will secure these neglected objects are 
processes of simplification, not processes of elaboration, 
not processes which multiply the instrumentalities of 
government unnecessarily and therefore its expenses, 
but the processes which make for the simplest, most 
straightforward, and businesslike conduct of affairs. 


NEED OF SELF-RELIANCE 


And, finally, it seems to me that it is the duty of 
the Democratic party to challenge the people by every 
possible means to depend upon themselves rather than 
upon fostering powers lodged in groups of individuals. 
There have been many encouraging signs in recent years, 
particularly in some of our smaller cities, that we have 
at last come upon a time when the people are arousing 
themselves to give over being dependent upon men 
whom they cannot watch and are taking direct charge, 
at any rate of their local governments. ‘There is no 
reason why this process should not extend to the gov- 
ernments of the States and in effect to the government 
of the nation. A simplification of electoral processes 
will do much to accomplish this. Government can be 
put in such a form as to be easy to understand, easy 
to criticise, easy to restrain. It should be the study 
of every sincere Democrat to promote the measure 
by which these things can be accomplished. 

In brief, our programme should be a general re- 
vival of popular politics, of common counsel, of re- 
sponsible leadership. We must supply efficient leaders 
and eschew all the lower personal objects of politics. 
It is a case of must as well as a case of may, a case 
of necessity as well as a case of privilege. A new day 
has come. Men and measures are being scrutinized as 


COLLEGE AND STATE 201 


never before. For myself, I veritably believe that we 
are upon the eve of a new era of political liberty, when 
more literally and truly than ever before we can realize 
the ideals of popular government and of individual 
privilege, the dawn of anage in which the pristine vigour 
of America may be renewed amidst fresh achievements 
for humanity. If the Democratic party sees this oppor- 
tunity and takes advantage of it without selfishness, with 
patriotic enthusiasm, with an ardour for the things a 
new age is to bring forth, it will win not mere party 
success, but a glory. which it will itself be glad to see 
merged and identified with the glory of the nation it- 
self. 


ADDRESS TO PITTSBURGH ALUMNI 


DELIVERED AT PITTSBURGH BANQUET, APRIL 16, I910. 
FROM “PITTSBURGH DISPATCH,’ APRIL 17, I9IO. 


M R. WILSON said in part: 

How does the nation judge Princeton? The in- 
stitution is intended for the service of the country, and 
it is by the requirements of the country that it will be 
measured. [ trust I may be thought among the last 
to blame the churches, yet I feel it my duty to say that 
they—at least the Protestant churches—are serving the 
classes and not the masses of the people. They have 
more regard for the pew rents than for men’s souls. 
They are depressing the level of Christian endeavor. 

It is the same with the universities. We look for the 
support of the wealthy and neglect our opportunities 
to serve the people. It is for this reason the State Uni- 
versity is held in popular approval while the privately 
supported institution to which we belong is coming to 
suffer a corresponding loss of esteem. 

While attending a recent Lincoln celebration I asked 
myself if Lincoln would have been as serviceable to 
the people of this country had he been a college man, 
and I was obliged to say to myself that he would not. 
The process to which the college man is subjected does 
not render him serviceable to the country as a whole. 
It is for this reason that I have dedicated every power 
in me to a democratic regeneration. 

The American college must become saturated in the 
same sympathies as the common people. The colleges 
of this country must be reconstructed from the top to 
the bottom. The American people will tolerate noth- 
ing that savours of exclusiveness. Their political par- 

202 


COLLEGE AND STATE 203 


ties are going to pieces. They are busy with their moral 
regeneration and they want leaders who can help them 
accomplish it. Only those leaders who seem able to 
promise something of a moral advance are able to se- 
cure a following. The people are tired of pretense, 
and I ask you, as Princeton men, to heed what is going 
on. 
te, ae ae 

If she loses her self-possession, America will stagger 
like France through fields of blood before she again 
finds peace and prosperity under the leadership of men 
who know her needs. 


HIDE AND SEEK POLITICS 


FROM THE “NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, MAY, 1910, 
VOL. CXCI, PP. 585-601. 


Aste political discussions of recent years concerning 
the reform of our political methods have carried 
us back to where we began. We set out upon our politi- 
cal adventures as a nation with one distinct object, 
namely, to put the control of government in the hands 
of the people, to set up a government by public opinion 
thoroughly democratic in its structure and motive. We 
were more interested in that than in making it efficient. 
Efficiency meant strength; strength might mean tyranny; 
and we were minded to have liberty at any cost. And 
now, behold! when our experiment is an hundred and 
thirty-odd years old, we discover that we have neither 
- efficiency nor control. It is stated and conceded on 
every side that our whole representative system is in 
the hands of the ‘‘machine’’: that the people do not in 
reality choose their representatives any longer, and that 
their representatives do not serve the general interest 
unless dragooned into doing so by extraordinary forces 
of agitation, but are controlled by personal and private 
influences; that there is no one anywhere whom we can 
hold publicly responsible, and that it is hide-and-seek 
who shall be punished, who rewarded, who preferred, 
who rejected,—that the processes of government 
amongst us, in short, are haphazard, the processes of 
control obscure and ineffectual. And so we are at the 
beginning again. We must, if any part of this be true, 
at once devote ourselves again to finding means to make 
our governments, whether in our cities, in our States, 
or in the nation, representative, responsible and efficient. 
204 


COLLEGE AND STATE 205 


Efficiency, of course, depends largely upon organiza- 
tion. There must be definite authority, centred in some- 
body in particular whom we can observe and control, 
and an organization built upon obedience and coodpera- 
tion, an organization which acts together, with system, 
intelligence, and energy. We were afraid of such an 
organization at the outset. It seemed to mean the con- 
centration of authority in too few hands and the set- 
ting up of a government which might be too strong 
for the people. Our chief thought was of control. We 
concluded that the best means of obtaining it was to 
make practically every office elective, whether great or 
small, superior or subordinate; to bring the structure 
of the government at every point into direct contact with 
the people. The derivation of every part of it we de- 
sired should be directly from the people. We were very 
shy of appointments to office. We wished only elec- 
tions, frequent and direct. 

As part of the system,—we supposed an indispensa- 
ble part,—we defined the duties of every office, great or 
small, by statute and gave to every officer a definite legal 
independence. We wished him to take his orders only 
from the law,—not from any superior, but from the 
people themselves, whose will the law was intended to 
embody. No officer appointed him and no officer could 
remove him. The people had given him his term, short 
enough to keep him in mind of his responsibility to 
them, and would not suffer any one but themselves to 
displace him, unless he became himself an actual breaker 
of the law. In that case he might be indicted like any 
other lawbreaker. But his indictment would be a fam- 
ily affair; no discipline imposed upon him by his su- 
periors in office, but a trial and judgment by his neigh- 
bours. A district attorney, elected on the same “ticket” 
with himself, would bring the matter to the attention 
of a grand jury of their neighbours, men who had in all 
likelihood voted for them both, and a petit jury of 
the same neighbourhood would hear and decide the case 


206 COLLEGE AND STATE 


if a true bill were found against him. He stood or fell 
by their judgment of the law, not by his character or 
efficiency. 

A sheriff in one of the States suffered a prisoner to 
be taken from him by a mob and hanged. He made no 
show or pretense even of resistance. The Governor 
of the State wrote him a sharp letter of rebuke for his 
criminal neglect of his duty. He replied in an open 
letter in which he bluntly requested the Governor to 
mind his own business. The interesting feature of the 
reply was not its impudence, but the fact that it could 
be written with perfect impunity. ‘The fact was as he 
had stated it. He was not responsible to the Gov- 
ernor or to any other officer whatever, but only to the 
voters of his neighbourhood, many of whom had com- 
posed the mob which took his prisoner from him and 
hanged him at their leisure. He was never called to 
account for what he had done. 

This is a sample of our direct responsibility to the 
people as a legal system. It was very serviceable and 
natural so long as our communities were themselves sim- 
ple and homogeneous. The old New England town 
meeting, for example, was an admirable instrument of 
actual self-government. Where neighbourhoods are 
small and neighbours know one another they can make 
actual selection of the men they wish to put into office. 
Every candidate is known by everybody, and the officers 
of government when elected serve a constituency of 
whose interests and opinions they are keenly and inti- 
mately aware. Any community whose elements are 
homogeneous and whose interests are simple can gov- 
ern itself very well in this informal fashion. The peo- 
ple in such a case, rather than the government, are the 
organism. But those simple days have gone by. The 
people of our present communities, from one end of 
the country to the other, are not homogeneous, but 
composite, their interests varied and extended, their 
life complex and intricate. The voters who make them 


COLLEGE AND STATE 207 


up are largely strangers to each other. Town meet- 
ings are out of the question, except for the most formal 
purposes, perfunctorily served; life sweeps around a. 
thousand centres, and the old processes of selection, 
the old bases of responsibility, are impossible. Officers 
of government used to be responsible because they were 
known and closely observed by neighbours of whose 
opinions and preferences they were familiarly aware; 
but now they are unknown, the servants of a political 
organization, not of their neighbours, irresponsible be- 
cause obscure, or because defended by the very com- 
plexity of the system of which they form a part. The 
elective items on every voter’s programme of duty have 
become too numerous to be dealt with separately and 
are, consequently, dealt with in the mass and by a new 
system, the system of political machinery against which 
we futilely cry out. 

I say “‘futilely cry out’? because the machine is both 
natural and indispensable in the circumstances and can- 
not be abolished unless the circumstances are changed, 
and very radically changed at that. We have given the 
people something so vast and complicated to do in 
asking them to select all the officers of government that 
they cannot do it. It must be done for them by profes- 
sionals. ‘There are so many men to be named for 
office; it is futile to name one or two unless you name 
a whole ticket; the offices that fill a ticket are so many 
and so obscure that it is impossible the thing should 
be done informally and offhand by direct, unassisted 
popular choice. There must be a preliminary process 
of selection, of nomination, of preparing the ticket as 
a whole, unless there is to be hopeless confusion, names 
put up at haphazard and nobody elected by a clear ma- 
jority at the end. The machine is as yet an indispensa- 
ble instrumentality of our politics. 

Public opinion in the United States was never better 
informed, never more intelligent, never more eager to 
make itself felt in fhe control of government for the 


208 COLLEGE AND STATE 


betterment of the nation than it is now; and yet, I 
venture to say, it was never more helpless to obtain 
its purposes by ordinary and stated means. It has to 
resort to convulsive, agitated, almost revolutionary 
means to have its way. It knows what it wants. It 
wants good men in office, sensible laws adjusted to ex- 
isting conditions, conscience in affairs and intelligence 
in their direction. But it is at a loss how to get these. 
It flings itself this way and that, frightens this group 
of politicians, pets that, hopes, protests, demands, but 
cannot govern. 

In its impatience it exaggerates the inefficiency and 
bad morals of its governments very grossly and is very 
unfair to men who would serve it if they could, who do 
serve it when they can, but who are caught in the same 
net of complicated circumstance in which opinion itself 
finds itself involved. ‘There is no just ground for be- 
lieving that our legislative and administrative bodies are 
generally corrupt. They are not. They are made up 
for the most part of honest men who are without leader- 
ship and without free opportunity; who try to under- 
stand the public interest and to devise measures to ad- 
vance it, but who are subordinate to a political system 
which they cannot dominate or ignore. The machinery 
of the bodies to which they belong is inorganic, as de- 
centralized as our elective processes would lead one to 
expect. No one person or group of persons amongst 
them has been authorized by the circumstances of their 
election to lead them or to assume responsibility for 
their programme of action. They therefore parcel out 
initiative and responsibility in conformity with the ob- 
vious dictates of the system. They put their business 
in the hands of committees,—a committee for each sub- 
ject they have to handle,—and give each of their mem- 
bers a place upon some committee. ‘The measures 
proposed to them, therefore, come from the four quar- 
ters of the heaven, from members big and little, known 
and unknown, but never from any responsible source. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 209 


There can be neither consistency nor continuity in the 
policies they attempt. What they do cannot be watched, 
and it cannot be itself organized and made a whole 
of. [here is so much of it and it is so miscellaneous 
that it cannot be debated. The individual member must 
do the best he can amidst the confusion. He has only 
an occasional part and opportunity. 

He is controlled, as a matter of fact, from out-of- 
doors,—not by the views of his constituents, but by a 
party organization which is intended to hold the hetero- 
geneous elements of our extraordinary political system 
together. 

When public opinion grows particularly restless and 
impatient of our present party organization, it is com- 
mon to hear it defended by the argument that parties 
are necessary in the conduct of a popular government; 
and the argument can be sustained by very sound and 
eloquent passages out of Burke and many another pub- 
lic man of the English-speaking peoples who has seen 
below the surface of affairs and convinced us of the 
real philosophy of our form of government; but the 
argument is quite aside from the point. Of course par- 
ties are necessary. [hey are not only necessary, but 
desirable, in order that conviction upon great public 
questions may be organized and bodies of men of like 
opinion and purpose brought together in effective and 
habitual codperation. Successful, orderly popular gov- 
ernment is impossible without them. But the argument 
for our own particular organization of parties is quite 
another matter. That organization is undoubtedly nec- 
essary in the circumstances, but you cannot prove its 
necessity out of Burke or any other man who made 
permanent analysis of liberty. We could have parties 
without organizing them in this particular way. ‘There 
have been parties in free governments time out of mind 
and in many parts of the world, but never anywhere else 
an organization of parties like our own. 

And yet that organization is for the time being nec- 


210 COLLEGE AND STATE 


essary. It centres, as everybody knows, in the nomi- 
nating machinery. ‘There could be no party organiza- 
tion if our elective system were literally carried out as 
it was intended to be, by the actual direct and informal 
selection of every officer of government, not by party 
agents or leaders, but by the scattered voters of the 
thousand neighbourhoods of a vast country. It was nec- 
essary to devise some machinery by which these in- 
numerable choices should be codrdinated and squared 
with party lines. It was a huge business and called 
for a compact and efficient organization. 

Moreover, there was more than the process of se- 
lection to be overseen and directed. Students of our 
political methods have not often enough brought into 
their reckoning the great diversity of social and eco- 
nomic interest and development which has existed among 
the different sections and regions of this various coun- 
try, which even yet shows every stage and variety of 
growth and make-up and an extraordinary mixture of 
races and elements of population. It has been neces- 
sary to keep this miscellaneous body together by con- 
tinual exterior pressure, to give it a common direction 
and consciousness of purpose by sheer force of organiza- 
tion, if political action was not to become hopelessly 
confused and disordered. It was not conscious of any 
immediate solidarity of interest or object. It might have 
broken up into a score of groups and coteries. We 
might have had more parties than France, as many 
sections of political opinion as there were distinctly 
marked regions of population and development. Party 
interest has been kept alive, party energy stimulated, 
by entrusting to local agents and leaders the duty of 
seeing to it that systematic party nominations were 
regularly made and urged upon the voters by organized 
campaigns, whether there was any natural reason or 
not why, in any given locality, this party or that should 
be preferred; and national parties have been pieced to- 
gether out of these local fragments. The creation of 


COLLEGE AND STATE 211 


the parts was necessary to the creation of the whole. I 
do not know how else co-ordinated parties could have 
been made out of such heterogeneous materials and such 
diversified interests. | 

The result has been that the nominating machinery 
has become the backbone of party organization. By 
it local leaders are rewarded with influence or office, 
are kept loyal, watchful and energetic. By it national 
majorities are pieced together. If one goes back to the ~ 
source of this matter, therefore, it is easy to see that 
the nominating machine was no barnacle, but a natural 
growth, the natural fruit of a system which made it 
necessary to elect every officer of government. The 
voter has not the leisure and, therefore, has not the 
knowledge for the difficult and intricate business. He 
cannot organize a government every year or two, make 
up its whole personnel, apply its punishments and re- 
wards, effect its dismissals and promotions. Neither is 
there any officer or any group of officers of the govern- 
ment itself who can organize it for him, for no officer 
has the legal authority. The structure of the govern- 
ment is disintegrated by the law itself, so far as its 
personnel is concerned. ‘The constitutions and statutes 
by which the officers are created endeavor, of course, 
to integrate their functions; but they disintegrate their 
personnel by making each officer the direct choice of 
the voters. The only possible means of integration lies 
outside governments, therefore, and is extra-legal. It 
is the nominating machine. The machine applies the 
necessary discipline of administration and keeps the sep- 
arately elected officers of one mind in the performance 
of their duties,—loyal to an exterior organization. 

The punishment it inflicts is definitely and clearly un- 
derstood. It will not renominate any man who when 
in office has been disobedient to party commands. It 
can in effect dismiss from office. Any one who wishes 
to remain in public life, at any rate in the smaller and 
less conspicuous offices within the gift of the managers, 


212 COLLEGE AND STATE 


must keep in their good graces. Independence offends 
the machine deeply, disobedience it will not tolerate at 
all. Its watchfulness never flags; its discipline is con- 
tinuous and effective. It is the chief instrument of party 
government under our system of elections. 

Thus have we necessitated the setting-up outside the 
government of what we were afraid ourselves to set 
up inside of it: concentrated power, administrative disci- 
pline, the authority to appoint and dismiss. For the 
power to nominate is virtually the power to appoint 
and to dismiss, as Professor Ford has pointed out in his 
lucid and convincing ‘Rise and Growth of American 
Politics.” It is exercised by the bosses, instead of by 
responsible officers of the government,—by the men 
who have charge of the nominating machinery: men 
who are themselves often entirely outside the govern- 
ment as legally constituted, hold no office, do not ask 
the people for their suffrages, and are picked out for 
their function by private processes over which the peo- 
ple have no control whatever. They are private citizens 
and exercise their powers of oversight and management 
without any public invitation of any kind. Just because 
there are innumerable offices to be filled by election, just 
because there are long and elaborate tickets to be made 
up, just because it needs close and constant attention 
to the matter to perform the duty of selection success- 
fully,—as careful and constant attention as the super- 
intendent of a great business or the head of a great gov- 
ernment bureau has to exercise in selecting and keeping 
up the personnel of his factory, his office, or his bu- 
reau,—it cannot possibly be done by the voters as a 
body. It requires too much knowledge and too much 
judgment, bestowed upon little offices without number 
as well as upon great. No officer of the government is 
authorized to appoint or select. Party managers must 
undertake it, therefore, who are not officers of the gov- 
ernment; and their nominations are virtual appoint- 
ments if they belong to the successful party. The voters 


COLLEGE AND STATE 213 


only choose as between the selections, the appointees, 
of the one party boss or the other. It is out of the 
question for them to make independent selections of 
their own. 

If this machine, thus bossed and administered, is an 
outside power over which the voter has no control,— 
which he can defeat only occasionally, when, in a fervor 
of reform, he prefers the candidates of some temporary 
amateur machine (that is, nominating apparatus) set 
up by some volunteer “committee of one hundred” 
which has undertaken a rescue,—it is the system which 
is to blame, not the politicians. Somebody, amateurs 
or professionals, must supply what they supply. We 
have created the situation and must either change it or 
abide by its results with such patience and philosophy 
as we can command. 

Our efforts at reform have been singularly misdi- 
rected. For years we laboured at the reform of the 
ballot itself, as if the way we printed it and the way we 
voted it were at fault. We adopted the so-called Aus- 
tralian method of voting, for example; isolated the 
voter in a closed booth, made it as easy as possible in 
the circumstances for him to mark and alter his bal- 
lot unscrutinized and unmolested, and passed laws 
which gave groups of voters not formally organized as 
parties the right to put names in nomination on the 
official ballot which had not passed through the party 
caucus or any other part of the machine. Finally in 
many of the States where the ardour of non-partisan ac- 
tion was warmest, we forbade the placing of any party 
sign or symbol at the head of the list of candidates 
printed on the official ballot, contrived a blanket ballot 
on which the names of all nominees were printed in im- 
partial alphabetical order under the names of the sey- 
era! offices for which they had been nominated, so that 
the voter,—such was our unsophisticated hope,—might 
choose the best man for each office without regard to 
who had nominated him, whether a regular party ma- 


214 COLLEGE AND STATE 


chine or a group of independent voters nominating by 
petition, I have seen a ballot of this kind which con- 
tained seven hundred names. It was bigger than the 
page of a newspaper and was printed in close columns 
as a newspaper would be. Of course no voter who is 
not a trained politician, who has not watched the whole 
process of nomination carefully, who does not know a 
great deal about the derivation and character and asso- 
ciation of every nominee it contains, can vote a ticket 
like that with intelligence. In nine cases out of ten, as 
it has turned out, he will simply mark the first name 
under each office, and the candidates whose names come 
highest in the alphabetical order will be elected. ‘There 
are cases on record where shrewd seekers of office have 
had their names changed to names beginning with some 
letter at the head of the alphabet preparatory to candi- 
dacy on such a ballot, knowing that they had no chance 
of election otherwise. And of course politicians gov- 
ern themselves accordingly in choosing a winning ticket. 
They are always the professionals, whatever system 
of choice you oblige them to employ, and always know 
better than any one else the actual results of the proc- 
esses used. 

It is very desirable to have secret voting to protect 
the voter against scrutiny or any kind of coercion, di- 
rect or indirect; it may be very desirable to have non- 
partisan nominations; but no secret or non-partisan de- 
vice can make it possible for the voter to use such bal- 
lots intelligently or to pick out his own candidates for 
office when there are a multitude of offices to be filled. 
It is the size and variety of the ballot that perplexes 
and bafiles him, be he never so intelligent and never so 
anxious to vote for the best candidates. He cannot pos- 
sibly make himself acquainted with the individual claims 
of the men whose names appear on these long lists. 
Many of the offices he is voting to fill are themselves 
as obscure as the men who have been nominated to oc- 
cupy them. He is not interested in the list as a whole. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 215 


A few conspicuous names upon it, candidates for the 
greater offices, he may have heard something about, a 
candidate for Congress or for the Governorship of 
his State, but the rest are mere names to him. It is 
impossible that he should discriminate. He is excusable 
if he presently comes to think of the whole thing as a 
farce and for feeling that, do what he will, the poli- 
ticians will take him in. He has in any event no choice 
but to put himself in their hands It is too occult a 
business for him to fathom. 

The result is the unchecked power of the irresponsi- 
ble politician; and some of the consequences are pain- 
fully interesting. Since the choice of candidates for 
office is a matter of private arrangement; since nominees 
thus chosen are our lawmakers, and our lawmakers by 
the same token appointees of the nominating machine, it 
follows very naturally that public business loses its pub- 
lic character and becomes itself a matter of private 
arrangement. It is settled in private conferences at 
State capitals and at Washington, not by public discus- 
sion, and the voters are informed what was actually 
agreed upon after an election, not before it. The Sec- 
retary of the Treasury smilingly informed a public audi- 
ence the other evening that the monetary commission 
of which Senator Aldrich is chairman, and which is 
expected to recommend to Congress well-considered 
measures for the reform of our banking and currency 
systems, would probably not make its report until after 
the next Congressional elections. The plain inference 
was that the commission thought it best, before making 
its report, to wait and see which party would be in con- 
trol of Congress, and thought it imprudent to let their 
conclusions be known before the elections for fear that 
they might in some way affect the result. In short, they 
deemed it best that the people should not be given an 
opportunity to discuss or express an opinion upon their 
own affairs, upon some of the most important and far- 
reaching questions now awaiting their decision! Judge 


216 COLLEGE AND STATE 


by the sample. Elections must be managed by the subtle 
alchemy of nomination, with as little regard to public 
questions as possible, and then the appointees of the 
successful managers must decide those questions in the 
best interest of the party in power. 

It is thus that the public business is managed with as 
careful privacy as the business of any private corpora- 
tion. Corporations will, indeed, when they are well 
and wisely managed, often take the public more into 
their confidence than the managers of government do, 
in order to enhance the credit of the corporation and in- 
crease or steady the value of its securities in the money- 
market, as well as the sale of its products. But poli- 
ticlans are very secretive. [hey have become so by 
the habit of the system. Debate has fallen out of fash- 
ion in our legislative assemblies because the business of 
those assemblies is-for the most part discussed and pre- 
pared by committees. The sittings of their committees 
are seldom public, except upon extraordinary occasions. 
Even when they are public few persons except those di- 
rectly and privately interested attend, and the matter 
is too particular, too much like a mere single item of 
the session, to attract the attention of the ordinary 
newspaper. ‘The business of legislation, therefore, like 
that of nomination, is for the most part conducted in 
private by the conference of small groups of men under 
party discipline. The public is not present either in 
fact or in thought. Committeemen get into the habit 
of being reticent and silent about what occurred in the 
committee-room and soon find themselves under the im- 
pression that it is their own private affair, anyway. 

The habit spreads to the deliberative bodies them- 
selves. Boards of Aldermen will often refuse to open 
their debates to reporters or to publish the names of 
those who voted Aye or No in the division when the 
debate was ended. And on the administrative side much 
of what is to be done or proposed is agreed upon by 
private conference between the executives of our cities 


COLLEGE AND STATE 217 


and States and the party managers,—sometimes the 
managers who appear in public and are known, some- 
times those who keep in the background and occupy 
no office, but are nevertheless omnipotent in matters of 
nomination and who wish the executive business of the 
government to be carried on in a way which will not 
embarrass them. And so, wherever we turn, we find 
the intimate business of government sealed up in confi- 
dences of every kind: confidences against the people 
with regard to their own affairs, confidences with re- 
gard to the way in which their interests are to be served 
and safeguarded. Public discussions are the mere for- 
mal dress parade of politics. 

It was very amusing, when Mr. Roosevelt was Presi- 
dent, to notice how seasoned politicians shivered when 
he spoke in public,—shivered at his terrible indiscre- 
tions, his frank revelations, whenever he chose, of what 
was going on inside political circles, his nonchalant fail- 
ure to keep any confidences whatever that he chose to 
make public use of. He spoke of any inside matter he 
pleased, as if it were the people’s privilege to know 
what was going on within their government. He may 
have chosen and chosen very astutely which confidences 
to keep, which to break, but he was strong and popular 
in proportion as he broke them and gave the people 
the impression that he was really telling them all he 
knew about their business, about the men and the mo- 
tives which were retarding the proper transaction of 
their business and the proper correction of the abuses 
under which they were suffering at the hands of men who 
enjoyed the confidence and protection of the managing . 
politicians. 

There is no ground for wonder that under a system 
under which it is constant hide-and-seek to discover who 
is responsible, to find out where public action originates 
and whither it is tending, this system of confidences 
should have sprung up. I do not know that any one . 
in particular is to blame. But the situation is certainly 


218 COLLEGE AND STATE 


extraordinary and makes it thoroughly worth while to 
inquire how the people may be reintroduced into their 
own affairs. 

It is high time. ‘The people must be brought into 
their own again. They have been excluded from free 
and effective participation in their own governments 
too long,—so long that a universal distrust of repre- 
sentative methods of government has sprung up, a uni- 
versal suspicion that there is nowhere any candor or 
honesty in the administration of public business, and 
we are in danger of revolutionary processes, of very 
radical changes which might be as futile as what we 
have already attempted by way of reform, while all the 
while a remedy, a very simple remedy, is at hand. We 
have not fallen upon these evil ways by any one’s sin- 
ister intention or machinations, but the fact is the same. 
The system we are under, though nobody invented it 
to cheat the people, has grown up and does cheat the 
people and must be done away with by very definite in- 
tention. 

There is no reason to despair, or even to tire, of rep- 
resentative government. It has not failed as some sup- 
pose, because it is representative and not direct. It has 
come near to breaking down only because it is not rep- 
resentative, only because the people of this country 
are prevented by the system of elections in which they 
have become entangled from electing representatives of 
their own choice. The people of other countries are not 
prevented. ‘They manage to get their will very directly 
expressed, alike in legislation and in the administra- 
tion of their governments. Foreign cities, for example, 
succeed excellently well, as well as it is reasonable ever 
to expect to succeed in matters of such magnitude and 
complexity, i in getting their affairs administered in the 
way a majority of their people really wish them to be 
administered. Most of the badly governed cities of the 
civilized world are on this side of the Atlantic, most 
of the well governed on the other side; and the rea- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 219 


son is not accidental. It has nothing to do with differ- 
ences of capacity or of virtue or of theory, nothing to 
do with differences of principle or of national charac- 
ter. It results from differences of organization of the 
most fundamental and important kind which cut to the 
very roots of the whole matter. 

Let the city of Glasgow serve as an example. It is 
known as one of the best-governed cities in the world, 
is a thoroughly modern city teeming with factories and 
with the movements of a great commerce and handling 
a vast population under many a natural disadvantage, 
and its government is not in any essential particular pe- 
culiar to itself. It is a sample, though a favourable 
sample, of the way in which most European cities, great 
and small, are governed. Its administration is entirely 
in the hands of its municipal council, which has a mem- 
bership of thirty-two. ‘The mayor of the city has no 
independent executive powers. He is merely chairman 
of the council and titular head of the city when it needs 
a public representative on formal occasions, when it 
welcomes guests or undertakes a ceremonious function. 
There is no upper and lower chamber of the council: 
it is a single body. It is not a legislature. No city 
council is. It is an administrative body conducting the 
business of a great chartered corporation. Its members 
are elected by the voters of the city by wards, one coun- 
cilman for each ward. ‘The voter’s connection with the 
government of the city is very simple. He votes for 
only one person, the councilman from his ward. That 
is his whole ticket. 

In its simplicity lies his power. He does not need 
the assistance of professional politicians to pick out 
a single candidate for a single conspicuous office. Any 
group of interested or public-spirited neighbours can do 
that. And the simple structure of the city’s govern- 
ment enables him to follow his representative through- 
out every vote and act of administration. The council 
divides itself into committees, a committee for each 


220 COLLEGE AND STATE 


branch of the city’s business. All the actual executive 
servants of the city are appointed and are the responsi- 
ble agents of the several committees under which they 
serve. All business is public, whether transacted by the 
council as a whole or by its committees. Everything 
that is done or agreed upon is published in full in the 
‘Glasgow Herald,” with the votes taken and the names 
of those who voted this way or that. By a mere glance 
at his morning paper the voter can keep his eye upon 
his own particular representative and know what he is 
doing, whether in the council or in the committee to 
which he has been assigned. His votes speak for them- 
selves. His responsibility is unmistakable. Another 
candidate may easily be nominated if his record is un- 
satisfactory and a whole campaign centred, so far as 
that ward is concerned, upon the definite question of a 
choice between this man and that. That is representa- 
tive government. If all the officials of the city govern- 
ment, or even the chief of them, were elected upon a 
common ticket it would not be. A machine would be 
necessary, amateur or professional, and the direct rep- 
resentative principle would, in fact, disappear. 

The same idea underlies one of the most interesting 
reforms that has recently been undertaken in our own 
cities. Following the example of Galveston, in Texas, 
a number of our cities have obtained from the legisla- 
tures of their States charters which authorize them to 
put their administration entirely in the hands of a small 
commission consisting generally of only five or six per- 
sons. ‘The voter’s attention is concentrated upon this 
commission both at election-time and throughout the 
course of its administration. This ticket of five or six 
names is the only ticket he is called upon to vote. The 
results have in several cases been extremely satisfactory, 
though the experiment has nowhere been of long enough 
standing to justify the formation of a confident or final 
judgment as to its ultimate effects. The commission 
has felt the responsibility and has responded to it. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 221 


The voters have known by whom they were being gov- 
erned and the nominating machine has, of course, sunk 
into insignificance. It remains a question, however, 
whether the load imposed upon the commission is not too 
heavy, whether it is fair to hold so small a body of 
men wholly responsible for the successful administra- 
tion of a modern city. Can five men, by any feasible 
division of labour, so long as a working day has only a 
limited number of hours in it and every man must take 
a little sleep and recreation, master the affairs com- 
mitted to their charge in sufficient detail really to keep 
them clear of inefficiency and abuse? It will probably 
turn out that it requires a considerably larger body of 
men really to direct and control matters of such magni- 
tude and variety. But that need not result in putting 
a greater burden on the voter and bringing the nomi- 
nating machine again into existence as his indispensa- 
ble assistant and ultimate master. He need not be 
made to vote for the whole body upon a common ticket. 
He need only vote for the representative from his own 
ward. ‘The essential thing is that his task should be 
comprehensible and manageable, that the men he is 
called upon to vote for should be so few that he can 
select them for himself or at least easily judge the ac- 
tion of those who do select them. 

That this is the simple and effectual solution of the 
matter, the certain means of restoring to the people a 
genuine choice of representatives and by the same token 
a genuine representative government, is no matter of 
conjecture. It has been tried in every country but our 
own, until we began to set up governments by commis- 
sion, and has had the desired result. It is not a pana- 
cea. It is a conclusion of obvious common sense. If 
the trouble is that we have given the people an im- 
possible task in asking them to choose the whole per- 
sonnel of our governments, and have thereby put them 
in the hands of persons to whom they are, by reason 
of its very complexity, obliged to depute it, the obvious 


222 COLLEGE AND STATE 


remedy is to make their task simple and practicable, 
to make it something that they can do and can take an 
interest in doing without neglecting their daily business 
and turning politicians. We have been mistaken,—this 
is the long and short of the matter,—in supposing that 
we were giving the people control of their governments 
_ by making all offices elective. We actually, as a matter 
of fact and of experience, put them in control only when 
we make only the chief, the really responsible offices 
elective, allow those whom we elect to appoint all minor 
officials, all executive agents, and hold them strictly 
responsible as the superintendents of our business. Our 
own experience has been very instructive in this matter 
in particulars which we have not enough observed. For 
example, the Governor of New Jersey, like the Gover- 
nors of one or two other States of the Union, is en- 
trusted with the power of appointing all the judges of 
the State, and the bench of New Jersey is famous for 
its excellence, much more famous than the bench of 
neighbouring States whose judges are elected. The State 
has had Governors good, bad, and indifferent, but all 
alike have made excellent appointments to the bench. 
They could share the responsibility with no one and it 
was a very conspicuous responsibility. In that matter 
if in no other the eye of public opinion was centred 
upon them personally, not merely upon their party. 
They could not venture to do that thing ill or in the 
interest of any coterie or machine. It always operates 
so, though we have not always taken note of the fact 
or understood the scope of the inference. 

The short ballot is the short and open way by which 
we can return to representative government. It has 
turned out that the methods of organization which lead 
to efficiency in government are also the methods which 
give the people control. ‘The busy owner is more effect- 
ually in control if he appoints a capable superintendent 
and holds him responsible for the conduct of the busi- 
ness than he would be if he undertook himself to choose 


COLLEGE AND STATE 228 


all the subordinate agents and workmen and superin- 
tend both them and the superintendent; and the busi- 
ness is also better conducted,—incomparably better con- 
ducted. What the voters of the country are now at- 
tempting is not only impossible, but also undesirable if 
we desire good government. Such a charter as that of 
the city of New York, for example, is a mere system 
of obscurity and of inefficiency. It disperses responsi- 
bility, multiplies elective offices beyond all reason or 
necessity, and makes both of the government itself and 
of its control by the voters a game of hide-and-seek in a 
labyrinth. Nothing could have been devised better 
suited to the uses of the professional politician, nothing 
susceptible of being more perfectly articulated with the 
nominating machine. As a means of popular govern- 
ment, it is not worth the bother and expense of an ~ 
election. , 

Simplicity is necessary in government as in business, 
for unity, for responsibility, for efficiency, and for con- 
trol: these four are, indeed, as a matter of experience, 
almost interchangeable and equivalent words. You can- 
not form or execute a judgment either in business or in 
politics without some such system of coherence and 
simplicity. 

Simplicity does not involve, in the case of govern- 
ment, a return to any of the abuses we have partially 
corrected. We did begin at the wrong end when we 
devoted the ardour and labour of years of reform to the 
mere reform of the existing civil service, to the intro- 
duction of a system of qualification for appointment to 
office by examination. We should have begun by making 
more offices appointive and the business of appointing 
so conspicuous and responsible a thing that those who 
undertook it could not afford to make appointments 
upon any principle of favoritism, could not afford to 
serve their own private objects in making them or any 
private interest whatever. But responsible officers need 
not object, will not object, to being themselves protected 


224 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and assisted by a system of qualifying examinations for 
appointment. ‘They should and probably would prefer 
it. It is a sensible and serviceable system and secures 
the public service against many a minor abuse which 
might creep in even if those who made appointments 
made them with full responsibility to public opinion,— 
in the fierce, revealing light that beats upon every act 
of personal power. ‘The instrumentalities we have al- 
ready created would prove more serviceable than ever. 

It is a very interesting and very vital thing to have 
come back to our original problem, to be obliged thus 
to become once more thoughtful partisans of genuine 
democracy. The issue is nothing less. What we need 
is a radical reform of our electoral system, and the 
proper reform will be a return to democracy. It is the 
high duty of every lover of political liberty to become 
a partisan of such a reform if once he becomes con- 
vinced of it. Another great age of American politics 
will have dawned when men seek once more the means 
to establish the rights of the people and forget parties 
’ and private interests to serve a nation. 


BANKERS AND STATESMANSHIP 


ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW JERSEY BANKERS’ ASSOCIA- 
TION AT ATLANTIC CITY, MAY 6, I910. FROM 
THE “PROCEEDINGS” OF THE SEVENTH ANNUAL 
CONVENTION OF THE NEW JERSEY BANKERS’ ASSO- 
CIATION, PP. 81-87. 


View haven’t had the same motive for waiting here so 
long that I have had. I have been waiting here 
with much the feeling I heard expressed by an old darky 
the other day. His master found him in the middle of 
the morning lying in the shadow of a tree, and said, 
“What are you doing here, Rube, resting?” ‘Resting? 
No, sir; I ain’t tired; I just waiting for time to quit 
work.” 

I wish I could deceive you with regard to the hour. 
A fellow Virginian of mine was caught in an embarrass- 
ing situation once. He went home in the small hours 
in the morning the worse for wear and inadvertently 
awakened his wife, who said severely, ‘‘John, what time 
is it?’ He said, ‘‘My dear, it is just about midnight.”’ 
He had hardly spoken the words when the clock struck 
three. She said, “‘What do you make of that?’ He 
said, ‘‘My dear, would you believe that damn Yankee 
invention against the word of a Southern gentleman?” 
I beg you to take the word of a Southern gentleman 
that it is still early in the evening. 

I was very much struck with the implicit faith my 
friend George Bryan put in bankers though he had 
seen them intimately and behind the scenes. ‘That was 
a very handsome thing he said about you. It made me 
determined to advise you of a suggestion of the late 
Tom Reed. On one occasion General Gordon, then 

225 


226 COLLEGE AND STATE 


senator from Georgia, was in the cloak room of the Sen- 
ate with Mr. Joseph Choate and Mr. Tom Reed. Mr. 
Choate was then representing before the Supreme Court, 
in a trial that was attracting a great deal of attention, 
a great corporation which was in bad odour, and Mr. 
Gordon said, “It must be rather trying, isn’t it, to be 
placed in that position just now?” ‘Not at all,” said 
Choate. “I think my client is entirely right. Indeed,” 
he added, “I have never represented a client until con- 
vinced that his cause was entirely just.” ‘“‘My!” said 
Gordon, ‘“‘that is a fine thing to be able to say. I wish 
I could say it.” “Well,” said Reed, ‘‘why don’t you? 
Choate did.” 

That justifies me in repeating the compliment that 
Mr. Bryan has paid you. George did, why shouldn’t I? 

I have had the misfortune of speaking—or I have had 
the good fortune and my audiences have had the mis- 
fortune of hearing me speak—at public banquets now 
for some twenty odd years, and I have witnessed a very 
interesting change in the temper of banquetters. When 
I first began attending public dinners it was absolutely 
necessary that an after-dinner speaker should confine 
himself to the lightest possible manner. If he inserted 
anything that was intended to be instructive, it was nec- 
essary that he insert it surreptitiously and convey it 
by means of some excellent story; but for some reason 
or other, gentlemen, we have been growing more and 
more serious and men get together after dinner now 
to consider some very weighty matters. The truth is 
that this country has come in these recent years to the 
insights of mature age, when it no longer feels unrea- 
soning confidence in its powers; when it realizes that 
certain difficulties have collected in its path, certain very 
undesirable practices have grown up in its public and in 
its private affairs, which it is necessary to take counsel 
about, if the right guidance is to be secured for the 
country and the right integrity lent it in respect to its 
leadership and its business. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 227 


Dishonesty, gentlemen, and what we now call graft, 
is not a new thing. It is as old as business and as old 
as politics. It is no less serious because it is old, but we 
must not regard it as a singular portent which marks 
our age as inferior to the ages which have preceded it. 
The only thing which need give us serious concern is - 
that some of the forms which dishonesty takes in our 
days are portentous,—not because they are forms of 
dishonesty, but because the scale is so gigantic, because 
the opportunity or field is so great. I believe, with Mr. 
Joline, that the conscience of this country is sound. I 
believe that thoughtful men all over this country recog- 
nize that which is righteous when they see it and desire 
that which is righteous in all their transactions. The 
difficulty is not about our moral standards. The difh- 
culty is about the application of those standards to very 
complex matters. In the old days when morality was 
a matter of individual choice it was comparatively easy 
to assess the individual, but in our days morality is not 
a matter of separate individual choice. It is a matter 
of corporate arrangement and the individual choice is 
subordinated. Therefore, we have to reckon men’s mo- 
rality now as if they were fractions and not as if they 
were integers,—not as if they were units, but as if they 
were subordinate parts of great complicated wholes. 

We are apt, as we have shown, to make very egre- 
gious blunders in assessing men in these circumstances. 
We have put the blame oftentimes upon the wrong man. 
We have let the men really to blame go scot free and 
have praised them, elevated them to an undeserved 
fame, not because we are not desirous of being just, 
but because we are confused by the multitudinous com- 
plexity of the scene in which we move. ‘The opportuni- 
ties for evil are now greater than they were because evil 
is fathered by bold combination and not individuality, 
just as good and very indispensable good is fathered 
by combination and not individually. And we are in 
danger, unless we make a very careful analysis of our 


228 COLLEGE AND STATE 


life, of impairing and impeding the legitimate under- 
takings in order to get at the illegitimate. It is of the 
utmost importance, therefore, that we should know what 
our subject matter is in order to be able to apply the 
sound, wholesome standards of the general public in- 
terest to the settlement of the problem. 

What is our problem? We conceive it to be the ab- 
sence of that sort of free competition which used to 
make monopoly almost impossible. ‘The competitors 
were once many; they are now few, and those who com- 
pete are gigantic combinations rather than individuals. 
Where the competitors are few and powerful the danger 
is much greater than when they were numerous and 
individually weak. ‘Therefore, it is absolutely necessary 
that we should make up our minds what the standard 
is we are going to hold up in judging transactions in 
our day. You know what the standard used to be; it 
was individual honesty. Individual honesty, I take 
leave to say, is, in our days, not often justly called in 
question. Some of the men who have done real dam- 
age in the business of this country have been individ- 
ually unimpeachable men, above every form of personal 
dishonesty, but exercising a power, a tremendous power, 
so unwisely and so selfishly that what they did operated 
against the public interest. What we wish to deter- 
mine, therefore, is a new standard; not the standard 
of mere personal horiesty. I would not, by emphasis on 
the word mere, seem to depress my estimate of indi- 
vidual honesty, for there is no finer thing in the world; 
there is no safer foundation for a nation than the in- 
tegrity of the individual. But, what we need is a new 
vision of the use to which honest men should be put, 
and that standard is the standard of motive and object 
rather than the standard of honesty. It is the standard 
of discriminating the objects we have in view and the 
instruments we use to attain them, the objects rather 
than our mere individual incentives in the transaction. 

I am not stating these things to you in order to sug- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 229 


gest remedies. I am not stating them as an introduc- 
tion to a political discussion of any kind. I am stating 
them to you because I believe bankers have a great deal 
to do with the setting up and the maintenance of the 
standards of business. 

The scale of modern business is so vast, the combina- 
tions necessarily effected for the transaction of modern 
business are so great that every combination, every 
trust, as we call it, is, of necessity, a public combination 
and a public trust. Its service and its standard cannot 
be private. It makes one tremble sometimes to think 
how secretly great combinations may be effected. You 
do not need to have me mention names or cite particu- 
lar instances to remind you that some of the greatest 
railway combinations, some of the greatest banking 
combinations have been effected without anybody know- 
ing of them until long afterwards. Who was the indi- 
vidual or who were the individuals who effected the 
combination? You know that the men who ostensibly 
appear as the officers of the organizations thus com- 
bined have in many instances had no choice, no part or 
voice in the combination. The danger, often, is not 
in the combination but in the secrecy of the process, 
in the inconspicuous part which is played by men whom 
the public can’t pick out as doing definite things for 
which somebody ought to be held responsible. 

I understand that my colleague, Professor Meeker, 
was discussing with you this afternoon the arguments 
for a central bank. You are, of course, aware, gentle- 
men, that a combination of banks in the city of New 
York now practically exercises all the powers of a cen- 
tral bank except the power of issue, and exercises that 
power without any of the public responsibility which 
a central bank organized by Federal statute would nec- 
essarily have imposed upon it. 

I am not jealous of the power of honest men, but I 
am jealous of the secrecy of the power even of honest 
men. And I maintain that the standard to which they 


230 COLLEGE AND STATE 


must be held, the standard to which you must be held, 
is not the interest of your individual enterprises, not 
the interests of the commercial classes or of the manu- 
facturing classes of this country alone, but the inter- 
ests of the nation and the people as a whole; that the 
public interest is now the standard of morality,—not 
honesty, not the ability to resist a bribe, not refraining 
from taking advantage of an illegitimate opportunity, 
but gauging the great business of great undertakings by 
the interest of the nation and the people who compose 
the nation and whose blood and energy enrich the na- 
tion. 

You, gentlemen, are trading in the capacities of a 
great and free people. Anything that checks and chills 
and discourages these capacities deprives you of the 
very sinews which constitute the strength of your own 
enterprise. If you ignore for any single moment the 
interests of the people of the United States, thought 
of as a unit, you have begun those processes of danger 
and decay which will ultimately result in bringing your 
very pet enterprises to a quick and disastrous end. 

Now, the point that I wish to make with you is this: 
What have bankers to do with these questions, which 
are questions of statesmanship? What have bankers 
to do with the general interest? Is it not sufficient if 
they conduct their own business with integrity and 
propriety and play the game according to its rules? 
No, it is not sufficient. 

I would have you believe that it is the duty of the 
banker to distinguish big risks from small and to recog- 
nize that the biggest risk a banker can take is by lend- 
ing the money, the resources of the country, to enter- 
prises which are contrary to the public interest. I ex- 
hort you in the name of the welfare of this country to 
pick out the enterprises to which you loan money upon 
the basis of the public interest, to reject those which 
are conducted by questionable men; to reject those, no 
matter what profits they may supply you with, which 


COLLEGE AND STATE 231 


are conducted by questionable methods; to reject those 
whose object in the long run is not the promotion of the 
general interest. 

There is another thing which seems to me the real 
interest of bankers and the clear duty of bankers, and 
that is to seek the new objects to which money may be 
devoted. I sometimes think that this country has too 
much fallen in love with established successes. The 
future of this country does not rest with established 
successes. The future rests with success not yet 
achieved. The men upon whom established enterprises 
now depend will die. 

Mr. Bryan has asked you, are you breeding men to 
take their places by encouraging those who merit en- 
couragement? I ask you, are you encouraging new. 
enterprises? Are you seeing to it that the energy of 
this country is renewed from generation to generation, 
—is refreshed with those bold individuals here and 
there who venture upon novel enterprises, who show 
the courage of initiative in novel fields, who seek to 
gain your support for men to whom the future appeals. 
The conquest of the present is incomparably insignifi- 
cant as compared with the conquest of the future; and 
the future conquests of this country lie with novel enter- 
prises. For we have come upon a novel age,—novel in 
this respect, that we can no longer play the childish 
game of using what we supposed were inexhaustible re- 
sources without any conscience as to the waste we com- 
mit. Up to this time the incomparable resources of 
this country have been put at the disposal by our gov- 
ernments, state and national, of anybody who would 
use them; but at last we know that we are upon the 
eve of their exhaustion and the great masters of finance 
and industry of the future are to be the men who 
know how to husband resources, renew resources, econ- 
omize resources, combine resources in such a way that 
there shall be no waste of energy, no mistaking of fore- 
cast, no dependence upon anything except the intelli- 


232 COLLEGE AND STATE 


gence, thoroughness and capacity with which the busi- 
ness is conducted. (Applause.) 

Moreover,—and I don’t say this because of my po- 
litical convictions, but because I believe it to be unques- 
tionably pertinent to my present remarks,—moreover, 
we have passed the age when business can be conducted 
by the patronage of the government. Our tariffs have 
ceased to be protective and have become systems of 
patronage. ‘The future in this country belongs to the 
man who can succeed without patronage; and he who 
cannot succeed without patronage is not the man of 
whom we have boasted when we have thought hitherto, 
of the use and capacity of Americans’ brains. 

We have in recent generations run to Washington for 
assistance because, forsooth, we had lost the American 
birthright of succeeding by our wits. We have sought 
to be protected against the greater economy, the greater 
studiousness, the greater mechanical skill, the greater 
scientific knowledge of the German manufacturer and 
miner. We have sought to be protected against brains 
and capacity and the hour has struck when we must cease 
to be protected against brains and capacity. 

Now, gentlemen, as bankers, are you going to pour 
your money into the channels of patronage or are you 
going to pour it into the inexhaustible fountains of 
original power? Are you going to go on having a 
nursed and coddled nation, coddled by your encourage- 
ment as well as by the encouragement of the govern- 
ment, or are you going to go back to the native strength 
of America which needs no assistance? America has 
come to her day of reckoning,—not a day of disaster, 
but a day when she shall have to reckon with other na- 
tions as to who has the better brains for the competi- 
tions, the sharp and universal competitions of modern 
business. We conquered the world once by our visions, 
gentlemen. We conquered men by feeding their hope 
of a political millennium when all men should be free 
and all men should be equal. We shall have to make 


COLLEGE AND STATE 233 


another spiritual conquest,—not, perhaps, in the field 
of politics, for men are men under whatever government 
they live and human nature must have its errors cor- 
rected by law under democratic systems as well as under 
monarchical systems. We shall have to make the con- 
quest of men now by a new ideal of endeavour, by a 
new willingness to submit our brains and our ingenuity 
to the universal pressure of the eager action of a world 
drawn together by all the instrumentalities of trade, 
drawn together by a cable and telegraph, drawn to- 
gether by those instrumentalities which seem the voice 
of the wind itself, in the wireless telegraph; drawn to- 
gether by the quick-moving ship and it may be by the 
quick-moving ship of the air, into one community in 
which it will be a day of shame for any race that can- 
not stand upon its feet and take the fruits of the game 
according to its merits. 

This day of maturity and responsibility has dawned 
upon us and the men who handle the accumulated de- 
posits or accumulated monetary resources of the nation 
are the men who will preside in these processes of inde- 
pendent endeavour. Gentlemen, the age has come when 
if you are not statesmen you cannot be bankers. ‘The 
day has dawned in which you will find that unless you 
understand the public interest you will not know how 
to serve any private interest whatever. ‘The day has 
come when a new patriotism will dawn upon us, not 
the patriotism merely of the statesmen and the man 
who gives public counsels, but the patriotism which 
comes out of every counting room, out of every office, 
out of every place where business takes its origination 
and its inspiration; and then the world shall again see 
an America which will show the way to liberty, to peace, 
and to achievement. (Great applause.) 


BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 


LAST ADDRESS AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, JUNE 12, 
I910. FROM ORIGINAL TYPEWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT 
BEARING MR. WILSON’S OWN CORRECTIONS, AT THE 
LIBRARY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 


We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which 
are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the 
things which are not seen are eternal.—II Corinthians IV, 18. 


Pee is inevitably a day of reckoning. This is a turn- 

ing point in your lives: a day of endings and of be- 
ginnings. We cannot choose but stop and ask what it sig- 
nifies, what profit and loss there is as we look backward, 
and what confidence as we look forward. We must 
examine so much of life as we have had; and as we look 
we realize that “‘we look not at the things which are 
seen, but at the things which are not seen,”’ and perceive, 
as we never perceived before, that “‘the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen 
are eternal.”’ It is an old and very familiar text: now 
at last we are in a way to see what it means. 

Your Commencement has come. Your own particu- 
lar year and month in the annals of the college; and you 
find it a season of singular contrasts. Everyone else 
about you is gay, but you are sad. It is your particular 
season, the month and year and day to which you have 
looked forward with hope and ambition for four years, 
—it may be for longer,—it may be ever since you 
formed at school the wish to go to college and to become 
a son of Princeton; and yet your spirits flag. There is 
a dull ache at your heart, and no gayety, no light ardour 
of enjoyment. For the other men who crowd the town, 
the graduates of other days, it is a season of reunion, but 

234 


COLLEGE AND STATE 235 


for you it is a time of parting. Your mood is more like 
that of the old gentlemen who graduated fifty years ago 
than like that of the men who graduated last year. They 
miss their old friends and are sad, knowing that they 
will see them no more: you are parting friend from 
friend and fear that you will see each other no more. 
And the life of these four years, the life that has bound 
you together, that you know you are breaking with for- 
ever. This little world in which you have lived and 
been happy together you now turn away from and aban- 
don. You can never reconstruct it again. It is a thing 
already finished. It does not comfort you that you will, 
many of you, be back again a year hence, happy to be 
reunited, because you know that you will not all be here 
at any time again. You will then be happy over noth- 
ing but fragments of this complete and beautiful thing 
that you have had, the life that was so much your own 
and of your own making. 

I do not have to imagine what you feel. I know; for 
I have felt it in days which will never seem to me very 
long ago. I have lived here now twenty years as a mem- 
ber of the faculty and the work of Princeton has become 
part of the very warp and woof of my life; but it has 
never in all those years been for a single moment the 
same Princeton for me that it was in the magical years 
that ran their cheerful course from the exciting autumn 
of 1875 to the gracious June of 1879. The four years 
of college life can never be repeated or reconstructed. 
They stand unique in every man’s experience to whom 
they mean anything at all. 

But you would not turn back. Your sadness is not 
the sadness of foreboding. You are not sad because 
you stand at the threshold of another life, but only 
because you are at the end of a life you loved. You are 
conscious of being readier for the things that lie ahead 
of you because of the days that lie behind you, for all 
you turn away from those days so reluctantly. You 
came here a body of strangers from all parts of the coun- 


236 COLLEGE AND STATE 


try, bred in many ways, under many influences, young- 
sters of every degree of rawness and inexperience, and 
you are now a homogeneous body of classmates, men 
who have learned a common lesson, comrades in a single 
school of experience and of principle. It is because you 
have all been wrought upon alike that you share so 
consciously the feeling of the day. You are keenly 
aware of the influences that have formed and united 
you here. They have become very familiar and very 
dear to you. They seem part of your very selves. It 
is hard to think of yourselves as scattered again to the 
four quarters of the country, shaken apart as individuals 
again, broken up into your units. You know how the 
common influences have worked upon you and it ren- 
ders you uneasy, unhappy even, to be drawn out of 
them as if for ever. It is the feeling you had when 
you left home. 

But you have never in fact left off feeling the influ- 
ence of home, have you? You never can leave off. 
Those impressions are indelible. So are also the im- 
pressions you have received here. I wonder if you have 
taken stock of them. You think that it is your friend- 
ships that have governed and formed you here, the 
daily experiences of the campus life, the four years to- 
gether in a various comradeship. But you cannot dis- 
sect the facts in that way. It is the whole Princeton 
that has gripped you and grappled you thus. ‘That is 
the reason this cannot be a day of endings for you, why 
it is in reality a day fuller of what is to come than of 
what has gone by. What is shaking you to-day is in 
reality the throb of this puissant place as a whole: the 
throb of what Princeton has put into you. 

Princeton does not consist, has never consisted, of you 
and your classmates. Here men come and go, the men 
of her faculty and trustees as well as the men of her 
classes, but her force is not abated. She fails not of the 
impressions she makes. Her men are formed from 
generation to generation as if by a spirit that survives 


COLLEGE AND STATE 237 


all persons and all circumstances. There is a sense, a 
very real sense, not mystical but plain fact of experi- 
ence, in which the spirit of truth, of knowledge, of hope, 
of revelation, dwells in a place like this, as it were 
inevitably, unless it be wholly decayed or demoralized. 
It has made some things certain for you, permanently 
and beyond conjecture. It has not left your minds fluid, 
volatile, escaping all mould and form. ‘There must be 
very few of you, if there be any, who have failed to get 
a definite undoubting grasp of some things that have 
here become certitudes for you. How could you feel 
at home here, else? How could you love a place that 
had left you groping and in the dark, the puzzled play- 
thing of conjecture and blank surmise? Mere comrade- 
ships and pleasures cannot have satisfied you. You 
must have been fed upon something and been nourished. 

I am not now thinking of knowledge so much as of 
what certainly underlies all knowledge. I do not mean 
merely that you have acquired certain definite informa- 
tion here which may serve you always as the material 
upon which your thought will feed. Information is no 
great matter. It changes from age to age, is often 
altered, and can be made to take a thousand shapes. 
I am thinking, rather, of what lies behind all knowledge, 
gives it colour, significance, variety. Science, for example, 
alters its allegations of fact from decade to decade, 
alters even its theories and hypotheses, but it does not 
alter its method. You feel that solid under your feet, do 
you not, as you have traversed it in the classroom and 
in the laboratory? It has made the world for you not 
a place for children and for ignorant guesses, but a 
place of definite ascertainable phenomena to be candidly 
and discerningly sought out and rationally explained 
by careful and clarified processes of reason. You know 
that the mind can be used as an instrument of precision 
and also as an instrument of definition when once it has 
mastered that thing of enlightenment, the method of 


238 COLLEGE AND STATE 


science. ‘There is one certitude for you. The physical 
world-need not remain the realm of conjecture. 

You are certain also, are you not, that there are 
definite comprehensible practices, immutable principles 
of government and of right conduct in the dealing of 
men with one another. The narratives, whether of his- 
tory or of biography, are faulty, no doubt full of errors 
and of circumstances misapprehended, but you cannot 
doubt that the main lines are drawn with substantial 
accuracy and truth; you cannot be uncertain how it is 
that men come by happiness or failure; you are sure 
that there is such a thing as justice and a noble force in 
men who are righteous and love the truth; you perceive 
that some governments are free, some tyrannous and 
cruel, that there is a way of freedom and of peace and 
a way of certitude and strife in the affairs of men, and 
that it is all a rewarding study of human life in its 
realities, in its actual habit as it lives,—that you have 
looked in the face of life, very noble, very tragical, full 
at once of pathos and of hope. 

And the literature you have studied and the philos- 
ophy you have read under wise masters. Have they not 
yielded you something that you will not henceforth 
doubt? All the great books of any language are records 
of the human spirit, the voices of men like yourselves 
who speak to you the secrets of your own souls as well 
as theirs. You enter a wide comradeship when you 
read them. You are made free of the company of all 
men everywhere; as you are also in your study of phi- 
losophy, where is the same thing unfolded in orderly 
and formal fashion, with the insight of interpretation, 
as if life were read for you by men of science. 

Surely you cannot be bewildered now. The world can 
no longer be to you a place of vague conjectures and 
childish ifs and buts, a play whose rules are guesses. 
And yet this is not information. This is not knowledge. 
You know very little. You are a good deal at sea in 
respect of your facts. You are glad your definite ex- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 239 


aminations are behind you. You have been made cer- 
tain only of what sort of world it is you live in and how 
you should handle yourselves in it. The things you have 
been rendered certain of are intangible, but more ac- 
tual, authentic, infallible than facts themselves. They 
represent the human spirit in command of the facts. 
They are the laws and masteries of the mind. They are 
the spiritual processes and realities by which we are 
made sure of life. Life is made definite and manage- 
able by masteries and convictions, and these are what 
you have acquired, if you have acquired anything. 

But what is the ultimate certainty? Is your certainty 
piecemeal and fragmentary? Have you learned only 
in disconnected segments? Education is a method of 
enlightenment concerning your relations to the material 
universe and to your fellow-men: has this brought you 
no confidence with regard to your relations to the God 
and Father of us all? Are you not more certain than 
ever that God is in his Heaven? Is your spirit awakened 
to all these other perceptions of life and reality without 
being vouchsafed a glimpse of the Father of Spirits? 
To know these other things that only implied Him is 
life, to know Him is life eternal,—eternal because per- 
fect, stripped of its last doubt and uncertainty, given 
the very spirit of vision. 

I have read in your hearing this morning the 103rd 
Psalm. Did it seem to you unreal and fanciful? Had 
it not, on the contrary, a reality which you would be 
at a loss to find anywhere else in the whole body of 
great songs men have conceived, unless perhaps in some 
other Psalm which speaks the same confident meaning 
with the same supreme conviction? When Paul stood 
upon Mars Hill facing that Athenian crowd gathered 
about him in skeptical curiosity, did he tell them any- 
thing that seems to you incredible, a tale of mere credu- 
lity and superstition? He did not hesitate to call the 
ignorance of the Athenians religion; was his religion 
not the religion of certitude, of knowledge? “I per- 


240 COLLEGE AND STATE 


ceive,” he said, “that in all things you are very religious. 
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found 
an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN 
GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him 
declare I unto you, God that made the world and all 
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and 
earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither 
is worshipped with man’s hands, as though he needed 
anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and 
all things; and hath made of one blood all the nations 
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and 
hath determined the times before appointed, and the 
bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the 
Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, 
though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him 
we live, and move, and have our being; as certain of 
your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” 

We have an instinctive sympathy with and compre- 
hension of Paul as he stands there. His voice of ex- 
postulation and interpretation seems our own. He is 
very natural, very inevitable. ‘‘We look not at the 
things which are seen, but at the things which are not 
seen.’ And we see deeper than did the Athenians who 
once stood about Mars Hill and listened to the great 
apostle. We do not spend our time ‘“‘in nothing else, 
but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” In all our | 
studies we have seen this to be a world of law, not dead 
but quick with forces of which the phenomena about us 
are not the reality but the mere temporary embodiment. 
At every turn it has been life that we have studied, 
whether the life of nature or the life of men; only in 
life have we been interested. We perceive now that 
it is not knowledge that we have been getting, but under- 
standing, comprehension, insight, and that what we 
chiefly desire to understand are ourselves and our fellow- 
men. And so we have seen Scripture become mere plain 
philosophy, the words of Christ the words of a teacher 


COLLEGE AND STATE 241 


who has seen the ultimate realities and speaks them very 
simply, with the simplicity of utter authority. 

It is plain enough to us that ‘‘man’s life does not 
consist in the abundance of the things which he posses- 
seth,’ but in his mastery of himself, of circumstance, 
of physical forces and of human relationships, of the 
spirit that is within him: that man “doth not live by 
bread alone,” but by every word of truth, every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, the author of 
truth, however spoken. Our thought cannot stop short 
of these ultimate realities, is not content without them. 
Mysteries become plain facts, the things which are seen 
appear thin to our gaze like mere masks, and the things 
which are not seen become real. | 

Our experience here, as well as our formal study, 
becomes part of the explanation as our thought dwells 
upon it. The things we have been most conscious of 
are our comradeships, our companionships, the com- 
merce we have had with one another, and we have be- 
come conscious, aS we never were before, that life is 
a thing that links spirit with spirit, that it is itself 
personal, not abstract, and yet intangible, not material; 
a thing too of law, but not of law imposed, of law 
accepted, rather, not made up of what we must so much 
as of what we will. We are drawn into it by impulse 
and affection as well as by interest. It is a thing by 
which we live and move and have our conscious being. 
And so we are drawn on to Paul’s conclusion. If life 
be thus personal, if it be of law, if the law of highest 
compulsion be the law of our own spirits, how shall we 
dispense with the knowledge of him who is the Father of 
Spirits; and yet how can we know Him whom we have 
not seen,—how can we know him except in the person 
of Christ, the express image of the Father, the Word 
that became flesh and “dwelt among us, full of grace 
and truth?” 

I have heard this called an age of science, in which 
individual choice counts for less and less and law for 


242 COLLEGE’ AND STATE 


more than ever before. I have heard it said, by men 
who claimed to base their statements upon observation, 
that this is an age in which individual men of necessity 
fall into the background, an age of machinery, of com- 
binations of individuals, of massed and aggregate 
power; and I marvel that the obvious facts should be 
so ignored. Perhaps not so many individuals are of 
significance as formerly, but the individuals who do 
tell more tremendously, wield a greater individual 
choice, command a power such as kings and conquerors 
never dreamed of in the simpler days gone by. ‘Their 
sway is the sway of destiny over millions upon millions 
of their fellow-countrymen, over the policy and fortunes 
of nations. ‘There never was a time when the spirit 
and character of individual men was of more imperial 
import and consequence than now. The whole scale of 
action is altered; but with the scale are magnified also 
the essential elements themselves. 

And so the type and symbol is magnified,—Christ, 
the embodiment of great motive, of divine sympathy, of 
that perfect justice which sees into the hearts of men, 
and that sweet grace of love which takes the sting out 
of every judgment. ‘We look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen’: we do 
not, we cannot, see Christ, but there he stands, the most 
indubitable fact of history, with a sway over the hearts 
and lives of men which has not been broken or inter- 
rupted these nineteen hundred years. No man can ever 
think of him as dead, unreal, a thing of books, a creature 
of theology. ‘“The things which are seen are temporal,”’ 
but He, He is the embodiment of those things which, 
not seen, are eternal,—the eternal force and grace and 
majesty, not of character, but of that which lies back 
of character, obedience to the informing will of the 
Father of our spirits. 

The force and beauty of Christ seem not to have 
been his own, as if original. He spoke always of his 
father, and of himself only as doing his father’s will 


COLLEGE AND STATE 243 


and speaking his father’s words. There dwelt in him 
a spirit, great and universal, as that of the round world 
itself, compact of law and truth, a spirit greater than the 
world, conveying life and vision from the source from 
which all worlds and existence itself must have taken 
origin. He is our revelation. In him is our life ex- | 
plained and our knowledge made comprehensible. He 
is the perfect elder brother of our spirits. In him we 
are made known to ourselves,—in him because he is 
God, and God is the end of our philosophy; the revela- 
tion of the thought which, if we will but obey it, shall 
make us free, lifting us to the planes where duty shall 
seem happiness, obedience liberty, life the fulfillment of 
the law. Science is our intimation; literature is the 
imperfect voice of our fellow-men, seeking, like our- 
selves, an exit for their hopes; philosophy is what we 
would fain convince ourselves of but cannot see: in all 
of these the things which are unseen and real lurk, but 
elude us. In Christ, in the God whom he reveals, the 
veil in torn away. Look! Look there and have your 
fill of what you have sought most. You must ever seek 
in vain until you raise your eyes to the Christ where he 
is lifted up. ‘“‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but 
have eternal life,’"—that life which subsisteth upon the 
things which are not seen. 

GENTLEMEN OF THE GRADUATING Crass: The real 
question for every one of you to-day as you turn 
away from the University to take up the tasks 
which may lead to your final achievements, is What 
sort of life the University has bred in you. Uni- 
versities deal with the spirits, not with the fortunes, 
of men. They are of an unserviceable sort when men 
may come and buy knowledge in them, purchase what 
store of information they may need for their business, 
as one would buy commodities in a mart, as if learning 
were merchandise; and you may fairly enough judge a 


244 COLLEGE AND STATE 


university by the love men have for it,—or the indiffer- 
ence. You would not love this place if you felt that it 
were a mere market. You have not dealt in learning 
here. You have not been formed by the facts you have 
gathered in the classroom and the laboratory. These 
things would stir no affection in you, and without affec- 
tion or repulsion there is no life. If your minds have 
been awakened here, it has been by contact with other 
minds, with that vital stuff, the minds of your teachers 
or of your comrades,—best of all, of those of your 
teachers who have also been your comrades. Fire has 
kindled fire, life life. You have been quickened to see 
new things, to comprehend realities, or else this has been 
no university to you, but only a place of dull or playful 
sojourn where you made believe to do what you were 
not really doing. Men love only the places where they 
have been stirred, to which the deeper experiences of 
life have attached them. 

What sort of life has the University bred in you 
that you should love her? Four years has seemed a 
long time to you, but a very short time to us who have 
sought to lead and teach you. Perhaps you think that 
to us you are only so many more in the indistinguishable 
mass of youngsters who pass before us in annual pro- 
cession, the years through; but you are deeply mis- 
taken. If that were true, you would have taken noth- 
ing from us. You have been the comrades of our 
thoughts, and we watch you with very wistful eyes as 
you turn away and leave us. ‘To-day we part, not to 
forget and be strangers again, for with a common heri- 
tage are we bound in a perpetual partnership. We can 
be partners only in that which we have inherited, that 
precious stuff in which we have traded,—in the things 
of the spirit, in the things which are not seen but which 
are eternal. May God bless you and keep you, and con- 
firm you in the vision of these things. This in you will 
be Princeton’s immortality. 


THE LAWYER AND THE COMMUNITY 


ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN 
BAR ASSOCIATION AT CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, 
AUGUST 31, I910. FROM MR. WILSON’S ORIGINAL 
TYPEWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT, CONTAINING HIS 
CHANGES IN PEN AND INK, IN THE PRINCETON 
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. 

HE whole history of society has been the history of 
a struggle for law, for the definite establishment and 
continuance of such relationships as seemed to those 
who had the choice to be best suited to the support of 
their own influence and for the maintenance of the com- 
munity over which they presided. Law is simply that 
part of the established thought and habit which has 
been accorded general acceptance and which is backed 
and sanctioned by the force and authority of the regu- 
larly constituted government of the body politic. ‘The 
whole history of liberty, that history which so quickens 
our pulses as we look back upon it and which so sustains 
our confidence in the power of righteousness and of 
all the handsomer, nobler impulses of humanity, has 
been a struggle for the recognition of rights not only, 
but for the embodiment of rights in law, in courts and 
magistrates and assemblies. Such must always be the 
form of every high endeavour made in the interest of 
men and of the ideals of political life. | 
We do not fight to establish theses. We do not pour 
our blood out to vindicate a philosophy of politics. 

There are two great empires of human feeling, the 

realm of religion and the realm of political aspiration. 

In the one realm we work spiritually, our liberty is of the 

thought; in the other we work structurally, our liberty 

245 


246 COLLEGE AND STATE 


abides in institutions, is real only when it is tangible, a 
thing that can be put into operation,—not in our own 
souls merely, but in the world of action outside of us as 
~ well. A right in the field of politics is a power to com- 
mand the action of others in our own behoof; and that is 
also a right in law. Religions are mighty forces of belief, 
and the church, when it has its genuine and entire liberty, 
lies outside the state; but political liberty lives and moves 
and has its being in the structure and practice of society. 
The two fields are not, indeed, sharply separated: re- 
ligious freedom must be safeguarded by institutional 
arrangements; but religious freedom is the right to be 
ungoverned, political freedom the right to be governed 
justly and with equity as between man and man. We 
fight for law as well as for faith because we fight not 
only for the right to think but also for the right to be 
and to do what we will within the limits of a just and 
equal order. 

I remind you of these things at the beginning of my 
discourse because I wish to say a good deal about our 
present struggle for law. The old order changeth,— 
changeth under our very eyes, not quietly and equably, 
but swiftly and with the noise and heat and tumult of 
reconstruction. ‘The forces of society contend openly 
with one another, avow their antagonisms, marshal and 
discipline their hosts, and are keen to win, not very 
willing to accommodate their differences and come to a 
common understanding which will be for the common 
advantage. 

I suppose that all struggle for law has been conscious, 
that very little of it has been blind or merely instinctive. 
It is the fashion, too, to say, as if with a superior knowl- 
edge of affairs and of human weakness, that every age 
has been an age of transition and that no age is more 
full of change than another; but in very few ages of 
the world has the struggle for change been so wide- 
spread, so deliberate, or upon so great a scale as this 
which we are taking part in. The transition we are 


COLLEGE ANDASTATE 247 


witnessing is no equable transition of growth and normal 
alteration, no silent, unconscious unfolding of one age 
into another, its natural heir and successor. Society is 
looking itself over, in our day, from top to bottom, 
is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements, 
is questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, 
scrutinizing every arrangement and motive of its life, 
and stands ready to attempt nothing less than a radical 
reconstruction, which only frank and honest counsels 
and the forces of generous codperation can hold back 
from becoming a revolution. We are in a temper to 
reconstruct economic society as we were once in a temper 
to reconstruct political society, and political society may 
itself undergo a radical modification in the process. I 
doubt if any age was ever more conscious of its task or 
more unanimously desirous of radical and extended 
changes in its economic and political practice. 

I do not speak of these things in apprehension, be- 
cause all is open and above board. ‘This is not a day 
in which great forces rally in secret. The whole stu- 
pendous programme is planned and canvassed in the 
open, and we have learned the rules of the game of 
change. Good temper, the wisdom that comes of sober 
counsel, the energy of thoughtful and unselfish men, 
the habit of codperation and of compromise which has 
been bred in us by long years of free government, in 
which reason rather than passion has been made to pre- 
vail by the sheer virtue of candid and universal debate, 
will enable us to win through still another great age 
without revolution. I speak in plain terms of the real 
character of what is now patent to every man merely in 
order to fix your thought upon the fact that this thing 
that is going on about us is not a mere warfare of opin- 
ion. It has an object, a definite and concrete object, 
and that object is Law, the alteration of institutions 
upon an extended plan of change. 

We are lawyers. This is the field of our knowledge. 
We are servants of society, officers of the courts of jus- 


248 COLLEGE AND STATE 


tice. Our duty is a much larger thing than the mere 
advice of private clients. In every deliberate struggle 
for law we ought to be the guides, not too critical and 
unwilling, not too tenacious of the familiar technical- 
ities in which we have been schooled, not too much in 
love with precedents and the easy maxims which have 
saved us the trouble of thinking, but ready to give expert 
and disinterested advice to those who purpose progress 
and the readjustment of the frontiers of justice. 

You cannot but have marked the recent changes in 
the relation of lawyers to affairs in this country; and, 
if you feel as I do about the great profession to which 
we belong, you cannot but have been made uneasy by 
the change. Lawyers constructed the fabric of our state 
governments and of the government of the United 
States, and throughout the earlier periods of our na- 
tional development presided over all the larger proc- 
esses of politics. Our political conscience as a nation 
was embedded in our written fundamental law. Every 
question of public policy seemed sooner or later to be- 
come a question of law, upon which trained lawyers 
must be consulted. In all our legislative halls debate 
thundered in the phrases of the written enactments under 
which our legislators and our governors exercised 
authority. Public life was a lawyer’s forum. Laymen 
lent their invaluable counsel, but lawyers guided, and 
lawyers framed the law. 

I am not speaking of the dependence of our political 
movement upon the judgments of courts. That has not 
been altered, and cannot be. So long as we have writ- 
ten constitutions courts must interpret them for us, and 
must be the final tribunals of interpretation. I am 
speaking of the prominence and ascendency of lawyers 
in the practical political processes which precede the 
judgments of the courts. Until the civil war came 
and the more debatable portions of our fundamental 
law were cut away by the sword, the very platform of 
parties centred upon questions of legal interpretation 


COLLEGE AND STATE 249 


and lawyers were our guiding statesmen. I suppose a 
more intensely legal polity never existed. 

So long as passion was excluded it was a tonic way of 
life. Statesmanship necessitated precise thinking. Every 
policy that was proposed had to be explicitly grounded 
upon precedent. At every step there was a reéxamina- 
tion of the fundamental principles which were alleged 
to justify or sustain it. Thought of the long history 
of English constitutional practice and of the avowed 
purpose with which government had been set up in 
America constituted the atmosphere in which everything 
was done. Every ancient, every recent contest for 
liberty threw its light forward upon the debates of 
Congress and of state legislatures. “The newest state 
shared with the oldest the long tradition, and all alike 
were thoughtful of what had been designed and hoped 
for by the men whose sacrifices had given life to our 
freedom. No doubt it stiffened the action of govern- 
ment. No doubt there was a formality and a scrupulous 
regard for the letter in the conduct of legislation better 
suited to a young country just finding itself and face to 
face only with large problems of simple and obvious 
character than to an older country, whose life has grown 
complex and confused and whose questions of exigency 
square with no plain precedents of constitutional 
practice. Lawyers will construct for you a very definite | 
polity, and construct it to admiration; they have not 
often shown themselves equally fitted to liberalize it or 
facilitate the processes of change. But the leadership 
of lawyers at least meant a repeated reéxamination of 
principle and precedent, and was very instructive even 
when it was least enlightened. It prevented fluidity. . 
A reason had to be given for every step taken,—a rea- 
son which would commend itself to the courts after it 
had commended itself to statesmen. ‘The statesman 
and the lawyer were clients and consorts, and the legal 
conscience of the people was constantly refreshed and 


250 COLLEGE AND STATE 


strengthened. These are great influences. They make 
for character and for the solidity of institutions. 

But they are gone. You have only to recall the many 
extraordinary interpretations of the interstate commerce 
clause of the Constitution upon which serious debate 
has been wasted in Congress in recent years to be con- 
vinced of it. Our lawyers themselves are not carefully 
trained as they used to be in the principles of our con- 
stitutional law. It does not stand in the foreground of 
their study or practice, but in the background, very 
vague and general, a thing to be resorted to only upon 
rare occasion. Our legislatures now listen to debates 
upon constitutional questions with ill-concealed impa- 
tience, as tedious and academic. ‘The nation has grown 
keen after certain practical objects and will not will- 
ingly brook the impediments set up by constitutions. 
The temper of the age is very nearly summed up in a 
feeling which you may put into words like these: ‘“There 
are certain things we must do. Our life as a nation 
must be rectified in certain all-important particulars. 
If there be no law for the change, it must be found or 
made. We will not be argued into impotency by law- 
yers. We are not interested in the structure of our 
governments so much as in the exigencies of our life.”’ 

There are many reasons why this change of temper 
and of point of view has occurred. I will venture to 
mention one or two of the more obvious. It is not by 
chance that statesmanship has grown bigger than the 
bounds of mere legal precedent. 

In the first place, the debates and constitutional strug- 
gles of the first seventy years of our political history 
settled most of the fundamental questions of our con- 
stitutional law. Solid lines of decided cases carry the 
definite outlines of the structure and make clear the 
methods of its action. We seemed after the civil war 
to be released from the demands of formal definition. 
The life of the nation running upon normal lines, has 
grown infinitely varied. It does not centre now upon 


COLLEGE AND STATE 251 


questions of governmental structure or of the distribu- 
tion of governmental powers. It centres upon economic 
questions, questions of the very structure and operation 
of society itself, of which government is only the instru- 
ment. Our development has run so fast and so far along 
the lines sketched in the earlier day of constitutional 
definition, has so crossed and interlaced those lines, 
has piled upon them such novel structures of trust and 
combination, has elaborated within them a life so mani- 
fold, so full of forces which transcend the boundaries 
of the country itself and fill the eyes of the world, that 
a new nation seems to have been created which the 
old formulas do not fit or afford a vital interpretation 
of itself. The confusion has clearly come about without 
intention. We have been engaged in enterprises which 
the law as we formerly looked at it was clearly not meant 
to prevent or embarrass. We pushed them forward, 
therefore, without thinking of the effect they might have 
upon older conceptions of our legal processes. They 
seemed to spring out of the normal and necessary uses 
of the great continent whose riches we have been ex- 
ploiting. We did not think of the legal consequences 
one way or the other, and therefore did not need or 
seek the advice of constitutional lawyers. 

Constitutional lawyers have fallen into the back- 
ground. We have relegated them to the Supreme 
Court, without asking ourselves where we are to find 
them when vacancies occur in that great tribunal. A 
new type of lawyers has been created; and that new 
type has come to be the prevailing type. Lawyers have 
been sucked into the maelstrom of the new business sys- 
tem of the country. That system is highly technical and 
highly specialized. It is divided into distinct sections 
and provinces, each with particular legal problems of 
its own. Lawyers, therefore, everywhere that business 
has thickened and had a large development, have become . 
experts in some special technical field. They do not 
practise law. They do not handle the general, miscel- 


22 COLLEGE AND STATE 


laneous interests of society. They are not general coun- 
sellors of right and obligation. [hey do not bear the 
relation to the business of their neighbourhoods that the 
family doctor bears to the health of the community in 
which he lives. ‘They do not concern themselves with 
the universal aspects of society. The family doctor is 
himself giving place to a score of specialists; and so is 
also what one might call the family solicitor. Lawyers 
are specialists, like all other men around them. The gen- 
eral, broad, universal field of law grows dim and yet 
more dim to their apprehension as they spend year 
after year in minute examination and analysis of a par- 
ticular part of it; not a small part, it may be, perhaps 
the part which the courts are for the time most con- 
cerned with, but a part which has undergone a high 
degree of development, which is very technical and 
many-sided, and which requires the study and practice 
of years for its mastery; and yet a province apart, whose 
conquest necessarily absorbs them and necessarily sep- 
arates them from the dwindling body of general practi- 
tioners who used to be our statesmen. 

And so society has lost something, or is losing it,— 
something which it is very serious to lose in an age of 
law, when society depends more than ever before upon 
the lawgiver and the courts for its structural steel, the 
harmony and coordination of its parts, its convenience, 
its permanency, and its facility. In gaining new func- 
tions, in being drawn into modern business instead of 
standing outside of it, in becoming identified with partic- 
ular interests instead of holding aloof and impartially 
advising all interests, the lawyer has lost his old func- 
tion, is looked askance at in politics, must disavow 
special engagements if he would have his counsel heeded 
in matters of common concern. Society has suffered 
a corresponding loss,—at least American society has. 
It has lost its one-time feeling for law as the basis of 
its peace, its progress, its prosperity. Lawyers are not 
now regarded as the mediators of progress. Society 


COLLEGE AND STATE 253 


was always ready to be prejudiced against them; now 
it finds its prejudice confirmed. 

Meanwhile, look what legal questions are to be set- 
tled, how stupendous they are, how far-reaching, and 
how impossible it will be to settle them without the 
advice of learned and experienced lawyers! ‘The coun- 
try must find lawyers of the right sort and of the old 
spirit to advise it, or it must stumble through a very 
chaos of blind experiment. It never needed lawyers 
who are also statesmen more than it needs them now, 
—needs them in its courts, in its legislatures, in its seats 
of executive authority,—lawyers who can think in the 
terms of society itself, mediate between interests, accom- 
modate right to right, establish equity, and bring the 
peace that will come with genuine hearty codperation, 
and will come in no other way. 

The specialization of business and the extraordinary 
development of corporate organization and administra- 
tion have led to consequences well worth the lawyer’s 
consideration. Everyone else is considering them, and 
considering them with deep concern. We have witnessed 
in modern business the submergence of the individual 
within the organization, and yet the increase to an ex- 
traordinary degree of the power of the individual, of 
the individual who happens to control the organization. 
Most men are individuals no longer so far as their busi- 
ness, its activities or its moralities, is concerned. ‘They 
are not units, but fractions; with their individuality and 
independence of choice in matters of business they have 
lost also their individual choice within the field of 
morals. They must do what they are told to do or lose 
their connection with modern affairs. ‘They are not at 
liberty to ask whether what they are told to do is right « 
or wrong. They cannot get at the men who ordered 
it,—have no access to them. They have no voice of 
counsel or of protest. They are mere cogs in a machine 
which has men for its parts. And yet there are men here 
and there with whom the whole choice lies. There are 


254 COLLEGE AND STATE 


men who control the machine as a whole and the men 
who compose it. There are men who use it with an im- 
perial freedom of design, whose power and whose in- 
dividuality overtop whole communities. There is more 
individual power than ever, but those who exercise it 
are few and formidable, and the mass of men are mere 
pawns in the game. 

The present task of the law is nothing less than to 
rehabilitate the individual,—not to make the subordin- 
ate independent of the superior, not to turn corpora- 
tions into debating societies, not to disintegrate what we 
have been at such pains to piece together in the organiza- 
tion of modern industrial enterprise, but to undo enough 
of what we have done in the development of our law 
of corporations to give the law direct access again to 
the individual,—to every individual in all his functions. 

Corporations do not do wrong. Individuals do wrong, 
the individuals who direct and use them for selfish and 
illegitimate purposes, to the injury of society and the 
serious curtailment of private rights. Guilt, as has been 
very truly said, is always personal. You cannot punish 
corporations. Fines fall upon the wrong persons, more 
heavily upon the innocent than upon the guilty, as much 
upon those who knew nothing whatever of the trans- 
actions for which the fine is imposed as upon those who 
originated and carried them through,—upon the stock- 
holders and the customers rather than upon the men 
who direct the policy of the business. If you dissolve 
the offending corporation, you throw great undertakings 
out of gear. You merely drive what you are seeking 
to check into other forms or temporarily disorganize 
some important business altogether, to the infinite loss 
of thousands of entirely innocent persons and to the 
great inconvenience of society as a whole. Law can 
never accomplish its objects in that way. It can never 
bring peace or command respect by such futilities. 

I regard the corporation as indispensable to modern 
business enterprise. I am not jealous of its size or 


COLLEGE AND STATE Bike 


might, if you will but abandon at the right points the 
fatuous, antiquated, and quite unnecessary fiction which 
treats it as a legal person; if you will but cease to deal 
with it by means of your law as if it were a single indi- 
vidual not only, but also,—what every child may per- 
ceive it is not,—a responsible individual. Such fictions 
and analogies were innocent and convenient enough so 
long as corporations were comparatively small and only 
one of many quite as important instrumentalities used 
in business, only a minor item in the economic order of 
society. But it is another matter now. ‘They span so- 
ciety, and the responsibilities involved in their complex 
organization and action must be analyzed by the law as 
the responsibilities of society itself, in all its other as- 
pects, have been. 

The corporation now overshadows partnerships alto- 
gether. Still more does it overshadow all individuals 
engaged in business on their own capital and separate 
responsibility. It is an arrangement by which hundreds 
of thousands of men who would in days gone by have 
set up in business for themselves put their money into 
a single huge accumulation and place the entire direc- 
tion of its employment in the hands of men they have 
never seen, with whom they never confer. These men, 
these quite autocratic managers, are thereby made, as it 
were, multiple individuals. In them are concentrated 
the resources, the choices, the opportunities, in brief 
the power, of thousands. They could never of them- 
selves, of their own effort and sagacity, have accumu- 
lated the vast capital they employ, and employ as if it 
were their own; and yet they have not the full legal 
responsibilities of those who supplied them with it. Be- 
cause they have the power of thousands they have not 
the responsibility common to those whose power they 
use! It is an extraordinary anomaly! 

A modern corporation is an economic society, a little - 
economic state,—and not always little, even as com- 
pared with states. Many modern corporations wield 


256 COLLEGE AND STATE 


revenues and command resources which no ancient state 
possessed, and which some modern bodies politic show 
no approach to in their budgets. “The economic power 
of society itself is concentrated in them for the conduct 
of this, that, or the other sort of business. ‘The func- 
tions of business are differentiated and divided amongst 
them, but the power for each function is massed. In 
some instances even the functions are not separated. 
Railroad companies have been known to buy coal mines. 
Manufacturing combinations have been observed to 
develop a score of subsidiary industries, to spread a 
network of organization over related enterprises, and 
sometimes even over enterprises whose relation to their 
main undertakings it is dificult for the lay mind to per- 
ceive. Society, in short, has discovered a new way of 
. massing its resources and its power of enterprise, is 
building up bodies economic outside its bodies politic 
which may, if we do not find the means to prevent them, 
the means of disclosing the responsibilities of the men 
- who compose them, dominate bodies politic themselves. 

And these huge industrial organizations we continue 
to treat as legal persons, as individuals, which we must 
not think of as consisting of persons, within which we 
despair of enabling the law to pick out anybody in partic- 
ular to put either its restraint or its command upon! It 
is childish, it is futile, it is ridiculous [copy illegible]. 
As well treat society itself as a unit; insist that it impose 
a fine upon itself for every wrong done, no matter how 
notorious it may be who did it; suggest that it embarrass 
all its processes of action and even break itself up into 
its constituent parts and begin all over again when the 
persons whom it has trusted prove depraved or selfish. 
It is not even interesting to continue such an experiment. 

Society cannot afford to have individuals wield the 
power of thousands without personal responsibility. It 
cannot afford to let its strongest men be the only men 
who are inaccessible to the law. Modern democratic 
society, in particular, cannot afford to constitute its eco- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 257 


nomic undertakings upon the monarchical or aristo- 
cratic principle and adopt the fiction that the kings and 
great men thus set up can do no wrong which will make 
them personally amenable to the law which restrains 
smaller men: that their kingdoms, not themselves, must 
suffer for their blindness, their follies, and their trans- 
gressions of right. 

It does not redeem the situation that these kings and 
chiefs of industry are not chosen upon the hereditary 
principle (sometimes, alas! they are) but are men who 
have risen by their own capacity, sometimes from utter 
obscurity, with the freedom of self-assertion which 
should characterize a free society. “Their power is none 
the less arbitrary and irresponsible when obtained. That 
a peasant may become king does not render the king- 
dom democratic. 

I would not have you think that I am speaking with a 
feeling of hostility towards the men who have in our 
day given the nation its extraordinary material power 
and prosperity by an exercise of genius such as in days 
gone by was used, in each great age, to build empires 
and alter the boundaries of states. I am drawing no 
indictment; no indictment that I could draw would be 
just. No indictment that has been drawn has been just, 
but only exaggerated and disquieting. ‘The time for hos- 
tilities has gone by. The time for accommodations, for _ 
common understandings, for a surcease of economic war- 
fare and the inauguration of the peace that will come 
only by common sacrifices and concessions, has come. I 
am simply trying to analyze the existing constitution of 
business in blunt words of truth, without animus or pas- 
sion of any kind, and with a single, clear purpose. 

That purpose is to recall you to the service of the 
nation as a whole, from which you have been drifting 
away; to remind you that, no matter what the exactions 
of modern legal business, no matter what or how great 
the necessity for specialization in your practice of the . 
law, you are not the servants of special interests, the 


258 COLLEGE AND STATE 


mere expert counsellors of this, that, or the other group 
of business men; but guardians of the general peace, 
the guides of those who seek to realize by some best 
accommodation the rights of men. With that purpose 
in view, I am asking you to look again at the corpora- 
tion. 

It is an indispensable convenience; but is it a neces- 
sary burden? Modern business is no doubt best con- 
ducted upon a great scale, for which the resources of 
the single individual are manifestly insuficient. Money 
and men must be massed in order to do the things that 
must be done for the support and facilitation of modern 
life. Whether energy or economy be your standard, it 
is plain enough that we cannot go back to the old com- 
petitive system under which individuals were the com- 
petitors. Wide organization and codperation have 
made the modern world possible and must maintain it. 
They have developed genius as well as wealth. ‘The 
nations are richer in capacity and in gifts comparable 
to the higher gifts of statesmanship because of them 
and the opportunities they have afforded exceptional 
men. But we have done things in pursuit of them, and 
have nursed notions regarding them, which are no neces- 
sary part of what we seek. We can have corporations, 
can retain them in unimpaired efficiency, without depriv- 
ing law of its ancient searching efficiency, its inexorable 
mandate that men, not societies, must suffer for wrongs 
done. The major promise of all law is moral respon- 
sibility, the moral responsibility of individuals for their 
acts and conspiracies; and no other foundation can any 
man lay upon which a stable fabric of equitable justice 
can be reared. 

I call your attention to the fact, therefore, that it 
is perfectly possible to have corporations and serve all 
the necessities and conveniences of modern society by 
means of the great combinations of wealth and energy 
which we have found to be so excellent, and yet dispense 
with a large part of the quite outworn and now in many 


COLLEGE AND STATE 259 


respects deeply demoralizing fiction that a corporation 
is an indivisible person. Of course we must continue to 
regard it as an artificial person so far as is necessary 
to enable it to hold such property as may be proper for 
the execution of its charter purposes, to sue and be sued, 
and to conduct its business through officers who speak 
for it is as a whole, and whose signatures and orders are, 
under its by-laws and resolutions, binding upon it. It 
must act and live as a person, and must be capable of 
enjoying, what individuals cannot enjoy, a certain per- 
petuity of power and authority, though individual men 
within it come and go, live, die, resign, or are trans- 

lated. But there its unity should stop. 3 

In respect of the responsibility which the law imposes 
in order to protect society itself, in order to protect 
men and communities against wrongs which are not 
breaches of contract but offences against the public in- 
terest, the common welfare, it is imperative that we 
should regard corporations as merely groups of indi- 
viduals, from which it may, perhaps, be harder to pick 
out particular persons for punishment than it is to pick 
them out of the general body of unassociated men, but 
from which it is, nevertheless, possible to pick them out, 
—possible not only, but absolutely necessary if busi- 
ness is ever again to be moralized. Corporations must 
continue to be used as a convenience in the transaction 
of business, but they must cease to be used as a covert | 
for wrong-doers. 

The managers of corporations themselves always 
know the men who originated the acts charged against 
them as done in contravention of the law; is there no 
means by which their names may be disclosed to the 
officers of justice? Every act, every policy in the con- 
duct of the affairs of a corporation originates with 
some particular officer, committee, or board. The ofh- 
cer, the committee, the board which orders an act or 
originates a policy contrary to the law of the land or 
intended to neutralize or contravene it is an insurgent 


260 COLLEGE AND STATE 


against society: the man or men who originate any such 
act or policy should be punished, and they alone. It is 
not necessary that the corporation should be broken up. 
It is not fair that the stockholders should be mulcted in 
damages. If there are damages to be paid they should 
be paid out of the private means of the persons who are 
really guilty. An analysis of the guilt is perfectly feas- 
ible. It is the duty of lawyers, of all lawyers, to assist 
the makers of law and the reformers of abuses by 
pointing out the best and most effective way to make it. 

It seems to me absurd, for example (let me say by 
way of parenthesis), to extend the law of libel to cor- 
porations, to suffer one publishing corporation to sue 
another for defamation. Somebody in particular has 
uttered the libel, somebody in particular has been li- 
beled. Character cannot be incorporated; writing can- 
not be corporately done. Are lawyers so incapable of 
ascertaining the facts that they cannot find out who it 
is that did the thing or who it is that has been injured 
in his reputation? 

I know that the matter is not as simple as it sounds. 
I know that some corporations are in fact controlled 
from the outside, not from the inside: that it often 
happens that some man or some small group of men who 
are not even in its directorate dictate its policy, its in- 
dividual acts, its attitude towards law and society, and 
that the men who act within it are little better than 
automata. But are they really beyond discovery? On 
the contrary, is it not generally a matter of common 
knowledge who they are? Would it take extraordinary 
acumen and intelligence to devise laws which would 
reach them also? What we are after, of course, is to 
obtain laws which will prevent the use of corporations 
to the public hurt and disadvantage. We know that 
the man who shoots his enemy was not in the gun, that 
he simply used it, and that no part of the mechanism 
of the gun itself is criminally liable. We can generally 
discover who used the gun and how he used it, what- 


COLLEGE AND STATE Bee 


ever his cunning and secrecy. We can also find out who 
uses the corporations against the public interest; and 
we can punish him, or them, if we will, whether they 
belong to the actual nominal organization of the cor- 
poration or not. Our processes of evidence may have 
to be considerably altered, but we can alter them; our 
formal conception of parties in interest may have to be 
extended, but it is easy to extend them; our make-believe 
that we can see nobody in the transaction but those who 
are avowed and formal members of the organization 
may have to be discarded, but that ought to be a relief 
to our consciences. We have allowed ourselves to be 
ridiculously limited and embarrassed by the theory that 
a corporation is an indivisible person not only, but that 
nobody outside of it, no matter how intimate his use 
and control, may be brought into the suit by any genteel 
lawyer bred in the orthodox schools of law. <A corpo- ° 
ration is merely a convenient instrument of business and 
we may regulate its use as we please, and those who use 
it. Here is merely an artificial, a fictitious person, whom 
God did not make or endow, which we ourselves have 
made with our own hands and can alter as we will. I 
see no law of nature in our way, but only some laws of 
evidence and of corporate theory which we have out- 
grown. 

You will say that in many instances it is not fair to 
pick out for punishment the particular officer who or- 
dered a thing done, because he really had no freedom 
in the matter: that he is himself under orders, exercises 
no individual liberty of choice, is a dummy manipulated 
from without. I reply that society should permit no 
man to carry out orders which are against law and pub- 
lic policy, and that, if you will but put one or two con- 
spicuous dummies in the penitentiary, there will be no 
more dummies for hire. You can stop the traffic in dum- 
mies, and then, when the idea has taken root in the cor- 
porate mind that dummies will be confiscated, pardon 
the one or two innocent men who may happen to have 


262 COLLEGE AND STATE 


got into jail. There will not be many, and the custom 
of the trade will change! 

There are other corporate matters worthy of your 
attention, but they do not intimately concern my present 
theme. I think you must admit, for example, that the 
. position of the minority stockholder is, in most of our 
States, extremely unsatisfactory. I do not wonder that 
he sometimes doubts whether corporate stocks are prop- 
erty at all or not. He does not seem to enjoy any of 
the substantial rights of property in connection with 
them. He is merely contributing money for the conduct 
of a business which other men run as they please. If 
he does not approve of what they do, there seems noth- 
ing for it but to sell the stock (though their acts may 
have depreciated its value immensely). He cannot even 
inquire or protest without being told to mind his own 
business,—the very thing he was innocently trying to 
do! There are many things which are not satisfactory 
about this putting the money of many men into one pile 
for the use of a board of directors, and to my mind it 
is clearly your task as counsellors of society to make 
them satisfactory. It is the duty of our profession to 
see to it that no man’s powers exceed or lie outside of 
his legal and personal responsibilities,—that the corpo- 
ration be made a mere convenience of business and not a 
means of irresponsible mastery: its interior and all men 
within it as accessible to the law as its exterior and 
the scattered individuals who have no corporate ambush 
from which to work their will. 

I have used the corporation merely as an illustration. 
It stands in the foreground of all modern economic 
questions, so far as the United States are concerned. 
It is society’s present means of effective life in the field 
of industry. Society must get complete control of its 
instrument or fail. But I have used it only as an illus- 
tration of a great theme, a theme greater than any 
single illustration could compass,—namely, the respon- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 263 


sibility of the lawyer to the community he professes to 
serve. 

You are not a mere body of expert business advisers 
in the fields of civil law or a mere body of expert advo- 
cates for those who get entangled in the meshes of the 
criminal law. You are servants of the public, of the 
state itself. You are under bonds to serve the general 
interest, the integrity and enlightenment of law itself, 
in the advice you give individuals. It is your duty also 
to advise those who make the laws,—to advise them in 
the general interest, with a view to the amelioration of 
every undesirable condition that the law can reach, the 
removal of every obstacle to progress and fair dealing 
that the law can remove, the lightening of every burden 
the law can lift and the righting of every wrong the law 
can rectify. The services of the lawyer are indispen- 
sable not only in the application of the accepted proc- 
esses of the law, the interpretation of existing rules in 
the daily operations of life and business. His services 
are indispensable also in keeping, and in making, the 
law clear with regard to responsibility, to organization, 
to liability, and, above all, to the relation of private 
rights to the public interest. 

The structure of modern society is a structure of law 
rather than of custom. ‘The lawyer’s advice is more 
than ever necessary to the state, therefore. Commu- 
nities as well as individuals stand in constant need of 
his guidance. ‘This used to be commonplace doctrine 
amongst us; why does it now need to be preached again? 
Is it mere accident that the relation of the legal profes- 
sion to affairs has changed? It is merely because the 
greater constitutional questions seemed for a time to be 
settled and legal debates gave place to industrial enter- 
prise, a great age of material following a great age of 
political development? Has it been merely a change 
of circumstances, or has it been a change of attitude 
and spirit as well on the part of the profession itself? 
Has not the lawyer allowed himself to become part of 


264 COLLEGE AND STATE 


the industrial development, has he not been sucked into 
the channels of business, has he not changed his con- 
nections and become part of the mercantile structure 
rather than part of the general social structure of our 
commonwealths as he used to be? Has he not turned 
away from his former interests and duties and become 
narrowed to a technical function? 

Whatever may be the cause, it is evident that he now 
regards himself as the counsel of individuals exclusively, 
and not of communities. He may plead this new or- 
ganization of politics, which seems to exclude all coun- 
sel except that of party success and personal control; 
he may argue that public questions have changed, have 
drifted away from his field, and that his advice is no 
longer asked; but, whatever his explanation or excuse, 
the fact is the same. He does not play the part he used 
to play; he does not show the spirit in affairs he used 
to show. He does not do what he ought to do. 

For there never was a time, in fact, when his advice, 
his disinterested and earnest advice, was more needed 
than it is now in the exigent processes of reform, in 
the busy processes of legislation through which we are 
passing, with so singular a mixture of hope and appre- 
hension. I hear a great many lawyers join the cry of the 
business men, that it is time legislators left business 
alone, allowed it to recover from the confusion and dis- 
traction of regulative statutes, altered tariffs, and su- 
pervising commissions, find its natural methods again, 
and go forward upon a way of prosperity which will 
not be beset by fear and uncertainty. But the cry is 
futile, the impatience which gives rise to it is selfish 
and ignorant. Nothing is settled or can be let alone 
when it is known to be wrong until it is set right. We 
have settled nothing in our recent reform legislation. 
That is the reason it is so unsatisfactory, and why some 
prudent and thoughtful men grow tired of it. But that 
is only another reason for seeking out and finding what 
will be the happy and successful way of setting our 


COLLEGE AND STATE 265 


economic interests in order. There has been no satis- 
factory settlement, but there must be one. Public opin- 
ion is wider awake about these matters than it has been 
within the memory of any man living, and it is not going 
to turn away from them until satisfactory reforms of 
the law are found. ‘There will be no peace until a happy 
and honourable basis of peace has been hit upon. Law- 
yers may come into the settlement or stay out of it, as 
they please, but a settlement there must be. For one, 
I hope that they will not stay out. I fear that it would 
be disastrous for them to do so,—disastrous to them 
and to society. I covet for them their old and honour- 
able leadership in public counsel. 

Just because they have so buried themselves in mod- 
ern business, just because they have been so intimate 
a part of it, they know better than any one else knows 
what legal adjustments have and have not been made, 
—know the practices that circumvent the law, even the 
existing law, and the provisions of statute and court 
procedure that might put a stop to them or square them 
with what the interests of the whole community demand, 
theirs is the special responsibility to advise remedies. . 
Theirs has been the part of intimate counsel in all that 
has been going on. The country holds them largely 
responsible for it. It distrusts every ‘‘corporation law- 
yer.” It supposes him in league with persons whom it 
has learned to dread, to whom it ascribes a degree of 
selfishness which in effect makes them public enemies, 
whatever their motives or their private character may 
be. And the lawyer,—what does he do? He stands 
stoutly on the defensive. He advises his client how he 
may make shift, no matter how the law runs. He de- 
clares that business would go very well and every man 
get his due if only legislators would keep their hands 
off! He keeps his expert advice for private persons 
and criticises those who struggle without his counte- 
nance or assistance along the difficult road of reform. 
It is not a promising situation. 


266 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Our reforms must be legal reforms. It is a pity they 
should go forward without the aid of those who have 
studied the law in its habit as it lives, those who know 
what is practicable and what is not, those who know, 
_ or should know, if anybody does, the history of liberty. 

The history of liberty is a history of law. Men are 
not free when they have merely conceived what their 
rights should be. They are not set free by philosophies 
of right. ‘Their theories of the rights of man may even 
lead them astray, may make them break their hearts in 
pursuit of hopes they can never realize, objects they can 
never grasp, ideals that will forever elude them. Noth- 
ing is more practical than the actual body of liberty. It 
consists of definitions based upon experience, or, rather, 
of practices that are the very essence of experience. A 
right is worth fighting for only when it can be put into 
operation. It can be put into operation only when its 
scope and limitation can be accurately defined in terms 
of legal procedure; and even then it may amount to 
nothing if the legal procedure be difficult, costly, or com- 
plicated. Liberty of speech is defined in the law of 
slander and of libel, and becomes mere license against 
which there is no protection if the law of slander or 
of libel be difficult or costly or uncertain to apply. Lib- 
erty of the person is defined only when the law has care- 
fully enumerated the circumstances in which it may be 
violated, the circumstances in which arrests and im- 
prisonments and army drafts, and all the other limita- 
tions upon which society may insist for its protection or 
convenience, will be lawful. Its reality, its solidity con- 
sists in the definiteness of the exceptions, in the practi- 
cality of the actual arrangements. 

And it is part of its definiteness and reality that liberty 
is always personal, never aggregate; always a thing 
inhering in individuals taken singly, never in groups or 
corporations or communities. The indivisible unit of 
society is the individual. He is also the indigestible 
unit. He cannot be merged or put into combination 


COLLEGE AND STATE 267 


without being lost to liberty, because lost to indepen- 
dence. Make of him a fraction instead of an integer, 
and you have broken his spirit, cut off the sources of 
his life. That is why I plead so earnestly for the indi- 
vidualization of responsibility within the corporation, 
for the establishment of the principle by law that a man 
has no more right to do a wrong as a member of a 
corporation than as an individual. Establish that prin- 
ciple, cut away the undergrowth of law that has sprung 
up so rankly about the corporation and made of it an 
ambush and covert, and it will give every man the right 
to say No again, to refuse to do wrong, no matter who 
orders him to do it. It will make a man of him. It is 
in his interest no less than in the interest of society, 
which must see to it that wrong-doing is put a stop to. 
We are upon the eve, gentlemen, of a great recon- 
struction. It calls for creative statesmanship as no age 
has done since that great age in which we set up the 
government under which we live, that government which 
was the admiration of the world until it suffered wrongs 
to grow up under it which have made many of our own 
compatriots question the freedom of our institutions 
and preach revolution against them. I do not fear 
revolution. I do not fear it even if it comes. I have 
unshaken faith in the power of America to keep its 
self-possession. If revolution comes, it will come in 
peaceful guise, as it came when we put aside the crude 
government of the Confederation and created the great 
federal state, which governed individuals, not corpora- 
tions, and which has been these hundred and thirty years 
our vehicle of progress. And it need not come. I do 
not believe for a moment that it will come. Some radi- 
cal changes we must make in our law and practice. Some 
reconstructions we must push forward which a new age 
and new circumstances impose upon us. But we can 
do it all in calm and sober fashion, like statesmen and 
patriots. Let us do it also like lawyers. Let us lend a 
hand to make the structure symmetrical, well propor- 


268 COLLEGE AND STATE 


tioned, solid, perfect. Let no future generation have 
cause to accuse us of having stood aloof, indifferent, 
half hostile, or of having impeded the realization of 
right. Let us make sure that liberty shall never repu- 
diate us as its friends and guides. We are the servants 
of society, the bond-servants of justice. 


LETTER OF RESIGNATION FROM 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 


READ AT MEETING OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES ON OCTOBER 
20, I910. FROM “PRINCETON ALUMNI WEEKLY,”’ 
OCTOBER 26, I910, VOL. II, NO. 5, P. 68. 


ENTLEMEN of the Board of Trustees: 

On the fifteenth of September last the Demo- 
cratic party of New Jersey nominated me for the office of 
Governor of the State, and I deemed it my duty to ac- 
cept the nomination. In view of Princeton’s imme- 
morial observance of the obligation of public service, I 
could not have done otherwise. 

Having accepted that nomination, it becomes my 
duty to resign the presidency of the University I have 
so long loved and sought to serve. I, therefore, hereby 
offer my resignation of this great office with which you 
have honoured me, and venture to express the hope that 
the Board will see its way to act upon the resignation 
at once. It is my earnest prayer that the University 
may go forward without halt or hindrance in the path 
of true scholarship and thoughtful service of the 
nation. 

Wooprow WILSON. 


269 





INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS GOVERNOR OF 
NEW JERSEY 


DELIVERED JANUARY 17, I9II. FROM THE “JOURNAL” 
OF THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY FOR IQI1, PP. 58-68. 


Eee Ceasers of the Legislature: I assume the 
great office of Governor of the State with unaffected 
difidence. Many great men have made this office illus- 
trious. A long tradition of honourable public service 
connects each incumbent of it with the generation of 
men who set up our governments here in free America, 
to give men perpetual assurance of liberty and justice 
and opportunity. No one dare be sure that he is quali- 
fied to play the part expected of him by the people of 
the commonwealth in the execution of this high trust. 
It is best for him, as he sets out, to look away from him- 
self and to concentrate his thought upon the people 
whom he serves, the sacred interests which are en- 
trusted to his care, and the day in which he is to work, 
its challenge, its promise, its energies of opinion and of 
purpose, its sustaining hopes and exciting expectations. 
The scene will inspire him, not thought of himself. 
The opportunity of our day in the field of politics 
no man can mistake who can read any, even the most 
superficial, signs of the times. We have never seen a 
day when duty was more plain, the task to be performed 
more obvious, the way in which to accomplish it more 
easy to determine. ‘The air has in recent months cleared 
amazingly about us, and thousands, hundreds of thou- 
sands, have lifted their eyes to look about them, to see 
things they never saw before, to comprehend things 
that once seemed vague and elusive. The whole world 
has changed within the lifetime of men not yet in their 
270 


COLLEGE AND STATE 271 


thirties; the world of business, and therefore the world 
of society and the world of politics. The organization 
and movement of business are new and upon a novel 
scale. Business has changed so rapidly that for a long 
time we were confused, alarmed, bewildered, in a sort 
of terror of the things we had ourselves raised up. We 
talked about them either in sensational articles in the 
magazines which distorted every line of the picture, or 
in conservative editorials in our newspapers, which 
stoutly denied that anything at all had happened, or 
in grave discourses which tried to treat them as per- 
fectly normal phenomena, or in legislative debates which 
sought to govern them with statutes which matched 
them neither in size nor in shape. 

But, if only by sheer dint of talking about them, 
either to frighten or to reassure one another, or to 
make ourselves out wiser or more knowing than our 
fellows, we have at last turned them about and looked 
at them from almost every angle and begin to see them 
whole, as they are. Corporations are no longer hob- 
goblins which have sprung at us out of some myste- 
rious ambush, nor yet unholy inventions of rascally rich 
men, nor yet the puzzling devices by which ingenious 
lawyers build up huge rights out of a multitude of small 
wrongs; but merely organizations of a perfectly intelli- 
gible sort which the law has licensed for the convenience 
of extensive business; organizations which have proved 
very useful but which have for the time being slipped 
out of the control of the very law that gave them leave 
to be and that can make or unmake them at pleasure. 
We have now to set ourselves to control them, soberly 
but effectively, and to bring them thoroughly within 
the regulation of the law. | 

There is a great opportunity here; for wise regulation, 
wise adjustment, will mean the removal of half the 
difficulties that now beset us in our search for justice 
and equality and fair chances of fortune for the indi- 
viduals who make up our modern society. And there 


272 COLLEGE AND STATE 


is a great obligation as well as a great opportunity, an 
imperative obligation, from which we cannot escape if 
we would. Public opinion is at last wide awake. It 
begins to understand the problems to be dealt with; it 
begins to see very clearly indeed the objects to be sought. 
It knows what has been going on. It sees where resist- 
ance has come from whenever efforts at reform have 
been made, and knows also the means of resistance that 
have been resorted to. It is watchful, insistent, sus- 
picious. No man who wishes to enjoy the public con- 
fidence dare hold back, and, if he is wise, he will not 
resort to subterfuge. A duty is exacted of him which 
he must perform simply, directly, immediately. The 
gate of opportunity stands wide open. If we are fool- 
ish enough to be unwilling to pass through it, the whip 
of opinion will drive us through. 

No wise man will say, of course, that he sees the 
whole problem of reform lying plain before him, or 
knows how to frame the entire body of law that will be 
necessary to square business with the general interest, 
and put right and fairness and public spirit in the saddle 
again in all the transactions of our new society; but 
some things are plain enough, and upon these we can 
act. 

In the first place, it is plain that our laws with regard 
to the relations of employer and employe are in many 
- respects wholly antiquated and impossible. They were 
framed for another age, which nobody now living re- 
members, which is, indeed, so remote from our life 
that it would be difficult for many of us to understand 
it if it were described to us. ‘The employer is now 
generally a corporation or huge company of some kind; 
the employe is one of hundreds or of thousands brought 
together, not by individual masters whom they know and 
with whom they have personal relations, but by agents 
of one sort or another. Workingmen are marshalled 
in great numbers for the performance of a multitude 
of particular tasks under a common discipline. They 


COLLEGE AND STATE 273 


generally use dangerous and powerful machinery, over 
whose repair and renewal they have no control. New 
rules must be devised with regard to their obligations 
and their rights, their obligations to their employers 
and their responsibilities to one another. New rules 
must be devised for their protection, for their compen- 
sation when injured, for their support when disabled. 

We call these questions of employers’ liability, ques- 
tions of workingmen’s compensation, but those terms 
do not suggest quite the whole matter. There is some- 
thing very new and very big and very complex about 
these new relations of capital and labour. A new eco- 
nomic society has sprung up, and we must effect a new 
set of adjustments. We must not pit power against 
weakness. The employer is generally in our day, as I 
have said, not an individual, but a powerful group of 
individuals, and yet the workingman is still, under. our 
existing law, an individual when dealing with his em- 
ployer, in case of accident, for example, or of loss or 
of illness, as well as in every contractual relationship. 
We must have a workingman’s compensation act which 
will not put upon him the burden of fighting powerful 
composite employers to obtain his rights, but which will 
give him his rights without suit, directly, and without 
contest, by automatic operation of law, as if of a law 
of insurance. 

This is the first adjustment needed, because it affects 
the rights, the happiness, the lives and fortunes of the 
largest number, and because it is the adjustment for 
which justice cries loudest and with the most direct ap- 
peal to our hearts as well as to our consciences. 

But there is regulation needed which lies back of 
that and is much more fundamental. The composite 
employer himself needs to have his character and powers 
overhauled, his constitution and rights reconsidered, 
readjusted to the fundamental and abiding interests 
of society. If I may speak very plainly, we are much © 
too free with grants of charters to corporations in New 


274 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Jersey: A corporation exists, not of natural right, but 
only by license of law, and the law, if we look at the 
matter in good conscience, is responsible for what it 
creates. It can never rightly authorize any kind of 
fraud or imposition. It cannot righteously allow the 
setting up of a business which has no sound basis, or 
which follows methods which in any way outrage jus- 
tice or fair dealing or the principles of honest industry. 
The law cannot give its license to things of that kind. 
It thereby authenticates what it ought of right to for- 
bid. 

I would urge, therefore, the imperative obligation 
of public policy and of public honesty we are under to 
effect such changes in the law of the State as will hence- 
forth effectually prevent the abuse of the privilege of 
incorporation which has in recent years brought so much 
discredit upon our State. In order to do this it will be 
necessary to regulate and restrict the issue of securities, 
to enforce regulations with regard to bona fide capital, 
examining very rigorously the basis of capitalization, 
and to prescribe methods by which the public shall be 
safeguarded against fraud, deception, extortion, and 
every abuse of its confidence. 

And such scrutiny and regulation ought not to be 
confined to corporations seeking charters. They ought 
also to be extended to corporations already operating 
under the license and authority of the State. For the 
right to undertake such regulation is susceptible of easy 
and obvious justification. A modern corporation—that is, 
a modern joint stock company—is in no proper sense an 
intimate or private concern. It is not set up on the risk 
and adventure of a few persons, the persons who 
originated it, manage it, carry it to failure or success. 
On the contrary, it is set up at what may be called the 
common risk. It is a risk and adventure in which the 
public are invited to share, and the hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, who subscribe to the stock do in fact share 
in it, oftentimes without sharing also, in any effectual 


COLLEGE AND STATE 275 


manner, in the control and development of the business 
in which their risk is taken. Moreover, these modern 
enterprises, with their exchequers replenished out of the 
common store of the savings of the nation, conduct 
business transactions whose scope and influence are as 
wide as whole regions of the Union, often as wide as 
the nation itself. ‘They affect sometimes the lives and 
fortunes of whole communities, dominate prices, deter- 
mine land values, make and unmake markets, develop or 
check the growth of city and of countryside. If law is 
at liberty to adjust the general conditions of society 
itself, it is at liberty to control these great instrumen- 
talities which nowadays, in so large part, determine the 
character of society. Wherever we can find what the 
common interest is in respect of them we shall find a 
solid enough basis for law, for reform. 

The matter is most obvious when we turn to what 
we have come to designate public service, or public util- 
ity, corporations—those which supply us with the means 
of transportation and with those common necessaries, 
water, light, heat, and power. Here are corporations 
exercising peculiar and extraordinary franchises, and 
bearing such a relation to society in respect of the 
services they render that it may be said that they are 
the very medium of its life. They render a public and 
common service of which it is necessary that practically 
everybody should avail himself. 

We have a Public Utilities Commission in New Jer- 
sey, but it has hardly more than powers of inquiry and — 
advice. It could even as it stands be made a powerful 
instrument of publicity and of opinion, but it may also 
modestly wait until it is asked before expressing a judg- 
ment, and in any case it will have the uncomfortable 
consciousness that its opinion is gratuitous, and carries 
no weight of effective authority. This will not do. It 
is understood by everybody who knows anything of the 
‘common interest that it must have complete regulative 
powers: the power to regulate rates, the power to learn 


276 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and make public everything that should furnish a basis 
for the public judgment with regard to the soundness, 
the efficiency, the economy of the business—the power, in 
brief, to adjust such service at every point and in every 
respect, whether of equipment or charges or methods 
of financing or means of service, to the general interest 
of the communities affected. “This can be done, as 
experience elsewhere has demonstrated, not only with- 
out destroying the profits of such business, but also with 
the effect of putting it upon a more satisfactory footing 
for those who conduct it no less than for those who make 
use of it day by day. 

Such regulation, based on thorough and authoritative 
inquiry, will go far towards disclosing and establishing 
those debatable values upon which so many questions 
of taxation turn. There is an uneasy feeling throughout 
the State, in which, I dare say, we all share, that there 
are glaring inequalities in our system—or, at any rate, 
in our practice—of taxation. ‘The most general com- 
plaint is, that there is great inequality as between indi- 
viduals and corporations. I do not see how anyone can 
determine whether there are or not, for we have ab- 
solutely no uniform system of assessment. It would 
seem that in every locality there is some local variety 
of practice, in the rate, the ratio of assessment value to 
market value, and that every assessor is a law unto him- 
self. Our whole system of taxation, which is no sys- 
tem at all, needs overhauling from top to bottom. There 
can be no system, no safety, no regulation in a multitude 
of boards. An efficient Public Utilities Commission will 
be a beginning towards a system of taxation as well as 
towards a system of corporate control. We cannot 
fairly tax values until we have ascertained and estab- 
lished them. 

And the great matter of conservation seems to me 
like a part of the same subject. The safeguarding of 
our water supply, the purification of our streams in 
order to maintain them as sources of life, and their 


COLLEGE AND STATE 277 


protection against those who would divert them or di- 
minish their volume for private profit, the maintenance 
of such woodlands as are left us and the reforestation 
of bare tracts more suited for forest than for field, the 
sanitation of great urban districts such as cover the 
northern portions of our State, by thorough systems of 
drainage and of refuse disposal, the protection of the 
public health and the facilitation of urban and suburban 
life—these are all public obligations which fall sooner or 
later upon you as the lawmakers of the commonwealth, 
and they are all parts of the one great task of adjust- 
ment which has fallen to our generation. Our business 
is to adjust right to right, interest to interest, and to 
systematize right and convenience, individual rights and 
corporate privileges, upon the single basis of the general 
good, the good of whole communities, the good which 
no one will look after or suffice to secure if the legislator 
does not, the common good for whose safeguarding and 
maintenance government is intended. 

This readjustment has not been going on very fast 
or very favorably in New Jersey. It has been observed 
that it limped, or was prevented, or neglected, in other 
States as well. Everywhere there has been confusion 
of counsel and many a sad miscarriage of plan. There 
have, consequently, been some very radical criticisms 
of our methods of political action. There is widespread 
dissatisfaction with what our legislatures do, and still 
more serious dissatisfaction with what they do not do. 
Some persons have said that representative government 
has proved too indirect and clumsy an instrument, and 
has broken down as a means of popular control. Others, 
looking a little deeper, have said that it was not repre- 
sentative government that had broken down, but the 
effort to get it. They have pointed out that with our 
present methods of machine nomination and our present 
methods of elections, which were nothing more than a 
choice between one set of machine nominees and an- 
other, we did not get representative government at all 


278 COLLEGE AND STATE 


—at least not government representative of the people, 
but government representative of political managers 
who served their own interests and the interests of those 
with whom they found it profitable to establish partner- 
ships. 

Obviously this is something that goes to the root of 
the whole matter. Back of all reform lies the method 
of getting it. Back of the question what you want lies 
the question, the fundamental question of all govern- 
ment, how are you going to get it? How are you going 
to get public servants who will obtain it for you? How 
are you going to get genuine representatives who will 
serve your real interests, and not their own or the in- 
terests of some special group or body of your fellow- 
citizens whose power is of the few and not of the 
many? ‘These are the queries which have drawn the 
attention of the whole country to the subject of the 
direct primary, the direct choice of representatives by 
the people, without the intervention of the nominating 
machine, the nominating organization. 

I earnestly commend to your careful consideration in 
this connection the laws in recent years adopted in the 
State of Oregon, whose effect has been to bring govern- 
ment back to the people and to protect it from the con- 
trol of the representatives of selfish and special interests. 
They seem to me to point the direction which we must 
also take before we have completed our regeneration of 
a government which has suffered so seriously and so 
long as ours has here in New Jersey from private man- 
agement and organized selfishness. Our primary laws, 
extended and perfected, will pave the way. They should 
be extended to every elective office, and to the selection 
of every party committee or official as well, in order that 
the people may once for all take charge of their own 
affairs, their own political organization and associa- 
tion; and the methods of primary selection should be 
' so perfected that the primaries will be put upon the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 279 


same free footing that the methods of election them- 
selves are meant to rest upon. 

We have here the undoubtedly sound chain and se- 
quence of reforms: an actual direct choice by the people 
of the men who are to organize alike their parties and 
their government, and those measures which true repre- 
sentatives of the people will certainly favour and adopt 
—systematic compensation for injured workingmen; the 
careful regulation in the common interest of all cor- 
porations, both in respect of their organization and of 
their methods of business, and especially of public ser- 
vice corporations; the equalization of taxes; and the 
conservation of the natural resources of the State and 
of the health and safety of its people. 

Another matter of the most vital consequence goes 
with all these: namely, systematic ballot reform and | 
thorough and stringent provisions of law against corrupt 
practices in connection alike with primaries and with 
elections. We have lagged behind our sister States in 
these important matters, and should make haste to avail 
ourselves of their example and their experience. Here, 
again, Oregon may be our guide. 

This is a big programme, but it is a perfectly consist- 
ent programme, and a perfectly feasible programme, 
and one upon whose details it ought to be possible to 
agree even within the limits of a single legislative ses- 
sion. You may count upon my cooperation at every 
step of the work. 

I have not spoken of the broad question of economy 
in the administration of the State government, an econ- 
omy which can probably be effected only through a 
thorough reorganization upon business principles, the 
familiar business principles so thoroughly understood 
and so intelligently practised by Americans, but so 
seldom applied to their governments. We make offices 
for party purposes too often, instead of conducting our 
public business by the organization best adapted to efh- 
ciency and economy. I have not dwelt upon the subject 


280 COLLEGE AND STATE 


in this address because it is a very complicated one, 
hardly suited for brief exposition, and because so ob- 
vious a requirement of honest government needs hardly 
more than to be mentioned to be universally endorsed 
by the public. I shall try to point out to you from time 
to time the means by which reorganization and economy 
may be secured with benefit to the public service. 

But there is a subject which lies a little off the beaten 
track to which I do wish to turn for a moment before I 
close. The whole country has remarked the extraor- 
dinary rise in the prices of foodstuffs in recent years, 
and the fact that prices are successfully maintained at 
an intolerably high level at all seasons, whether 
they be the seasons of plenty or of scarcity. We 
have a partial remedy at our own hand—a remedy 
which was proposed to the Legislature last year 
by Mr. James, of Hudson county, but which is said 
to have been defeated in some questionable fashion 
in the last hours of the session. It is estimated that most 
of the food supply of the people of northern New Jer- 
sey, and half the food supply for New York City, is kept 
in cold-storage warehouses in Hudson county, await- 
ing the desired state of the market. There is abundant 
reason to believe that it is the practice of dealers to 
seclude immense quantities of beef and other meats, 
poultry, eggs, fish, etc., in cold-storage in times of abun- 
dance in order that the price of these indispensable 
foods may be kept high and the foods dealt out only 
when the market is satisfactory for that purpose, even 
if the meats and eggs have to be kept for years together 
before being sold. Figures, said to be actually of 
record, foot up almost incredible totals of the amounts 
thus held in waiting, running into millions of heads of 
cattle, of sheep and lambs, of hogs, millions of pounds 
of poultry, and hundreds of millions of eggs. 

The result is not only to control prices but also to 
endanger health, because of the effect of too long stor- 
age upon the foodstuffs themselves, and because of the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 281 


deleterious effects of taking them out of cold-storage 
and exposing them to thaw in the markets. The least 
effect is loss of nutritious quality; the worst, the genera- 
tion of actual poisons by decay and even putrefaction. 

No limit at all is put upon this abuse by law, and 
strong influences are brought to bear by interested par- 
ties to prevent the enactment of remedial legislation. 
Indictments were brought in Hudson county, but there 
was no sufficient law to sustain them. A bill was intro- 
duced, as I have said, at the last session of the Legisla- 
ture, but was, I am told, after lingering a very long time 
in the Assembly committee, mysteriously lost when 
called up for passage in the Senate during the last hours 
of the session. | earnestly urge that the Legislature 
take up this important matter at the earliest possible 
time, and push some effective law of inspection and 
limitation to enactment. It would give me great pleas- 
ure to sign a bill that would really accomplish the 
purpose. 

We are servants of the people, of the whole people. 
Their interest should be our constant study. We should 
pursue it without fear or favour. Our reward will be 
greater than that to be obtained in any other service: 
the satisfaction of furthering large ends, large pur- 
poses, of being an intimate part of that slow but con- 
stant and ever hopeful force of liberty and of enlighten- 
ment that is lifting mankind from age to age to new 
levels of progress and achievement, and of having been 
something greater than successful men. For we shall 
have been instruments of humanity, men whose thought 
was not for themselves, but for the true and lasting 
comfort and happiness of men everywhere. It is not 
the foolish ardour of too sanguine or too radical reform 
that I urge upon you, but merely the tasks that are 
evident and pressing, the things we have knowledge 
and guidance enough to do; and to do with confidence 
and energy. I merely point out the present business of 
progressive and serviceable government, the next stage 


282 COLLEGE AND STATE 


on the journey of duty. The path is as inviting as it is 
plain. Shall we hesitate to tread it? I look forward 
with genuine pleasure to the prospect of being your com- 
rade upon it. 


ISSUES OF FREEDOM. 


ADDRESS DELIVERED AT BANQUET OF THE KNIFE AND 
FORK CLUB OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, MAY 5, 
IQII. FROM PAMPHLET. 


dt HERE can be no mistaking the fact that we are now 
face to face with political changes which may have a 
very profound effect upon our political life. “Those who 
do not understand the impending change are afraid of 
it. Those who do understand it know that it is not 
a process of revolution, but a process of restoration, 
rather, in which there is as much healing as hurt. There 
are strain and peril, no doubt, in every process of 
change, but the chief peril comes from undertaking it 
in the wrong temper. It lies not in the change itself 
so much as in the method of some of those who promote 
it. It is a noteworthy circumstance that in proportion 
as the people of the country come to recognize what 
it is that renders them uneasy and what it is that is 
proposed by way of reformation they lose their fear and 
take on a certain irresistible enthusiasm. 

The American people are naturally a conservative 
people. They do not wish to touch the stable founda- 
tions of their life; they have a reverence for the rights 
of property and the rights of contract which is based 
upon a long experience in a free life, in which they have 
been at liberty to acquire property as they pleased and 
bind themselves by such contracts as suited them. No 
other people have ever had such freedom in the estab- 
lishment of personal relationships or property rights. 
They do not mean to lose this freedom or to impair 
any rights at all, but they do feel that a great many 
things in their economic life and in their political action 

283 


284 COLLEGE AND STATE 


are out of gear. They have been cheated by their own 
political machinery. They have been dominated by the 
very instrumentalities which they themselves created 
in the field of industrial action. ‘The liberty of the indi- 
vidual is hampered and impaired. They desire, there- 
fore, not a revolution, not a cutting loose from any 
part of their past, but a readjustment of the elements 
of their life, a reconsideration of what it is just to do 
and equitable to arrange in order that they may be 
indeed free, may indeed make their own choices and live 
their own life undominated, unafraid, unsuspicious, con- 
fident that they will be served by their public men and 
that the open processes of their government will bring 
to them justice and timely reform. 

What we are witnessing now is not so much a conflict 
of parties as a contest of ideals, a struggle between those 
who, because they do not understand what is happening, 
blindly hold on to what is and those who, because they 
do see the real questions of the present and of the future 
in a clear, revealing light, know that there must be sober 
change; know that progress, none the less active and 
determined because it is sober and just, is necessary for 
the maintenance of our institutions and the rectification 
of our life. In both the great national parties there are 
men who feel this ardour of progress and of reform, and 
in both parties there are men who hold back, who strug- 
gle to restrain change, who do not understand it or who 
have reason to fear it. Undoubtedly the present mo- 
ment offers a greater and larger opportunity to the 
Democratic party than to the Republican party; but this 
is not because there are not men in the Republican 
party who have devoted their whole intelligence and 
energy. to necessary reform, but because the Demo- 
cratic party as a whole is freer to move and to act than 
the Republican is and is held back by a smaller and 
' weaker body of representatives of the things that are 
and have been. 

We generally sum up what we mean by the reaction- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 285 


ary forces by speaking of them as embodied in the 
Interests. By that we do not mean the legitimate but 
the illegitimate interests, those which have not adjusted 
themselves to the public interests, those which are cling- 
ing to their vested rights as a bulwark against the ad- 
justment which is absolutely necessary if they are to be 
servants and not masters of the public. The chief polit- 
ical fact of the day is that the Republican party is more 
closely allied with these Interests than the Democratic 
party. This circumstance constitutes the opportunity 
of the Democrats. ‘They are free to act and to move 
in the right direction if they will but accept the respon- 
sibility and the leadership. ‘The Democratic party is 
more in sympathy with the new tendencies than the Re- 
publican. Its free forces are the forces of progress and 
of popular reform. 

Both parties are of necessity breaking away from 
the past, whether they will or no, because our life has 
broken away from the past. The life of America is not 
the life it was twenty years ago. It is not the life it 
was ten years ago. We have changed our economic 
conditions from top to bottom, and with our economic 
conditions has changed also the organization of our 
life. The old party formulas do not fit the present 
problems. The old cries of the stump sound as if they 
belonged to a past age which men have almost forgot- 
ten. The things which used to be put into the party 
platforms of ten years ago would sound antiquated 
now. You will note, moreover, that the political audi- 
ences which nowadays gather together are not partisan 
audiences. They are made up of all elements and come 
together, not to hear parties denounced or praised, 
but to hear the interests of the nation discussed in new 
terms—the terms of the present moment. 

We have so complicated our machinery of govern- 
ment, we have made it so difficult, so full of ambushes 
and hiding places, so indirect, that instead of having true 
representative government we have a great inextricable 


286 COLLEGE AND STATE 


jungle of organization intervening between the people 
and the processes of their government; so that by stages, 
without intending it, without being aware of it, we have 
lost the purity and directness of representative govern- 
ment. What we must devote ourselves to now is, not 
to upsetting our institutions, but to restoring them. 

Undoubtedly we should avoid excitement and should 
silence the demagogue. The man with power, but with- 
out conscience, could, with an eloquent tongue, if hé 
cared for nothing but his own power, put this whole 
country into a flame, because the whole country believes 
that something is wrong and is eager to follow those 
who profess to be able to lead it away from its difficul- 
ties. But it is all the more necessary that we should be 
careful who are our guides. ‘The processes we are 
engaged in are fundamentally conservative processes. 
If your tree is diseased it is no revolution to restore 
to it the purity of its sap, to renew the soil that sustains 
it, to reéstablish the conditions of its health. That 
is a process of life, of renewal, of redemption. 

There is no ground for alarm, therefore. We are 
bent upon a perfectly definite programme, which is one 
of health and renewal. 

Let us ask ourselves very frankly what it is that needs 
to be corrected. ‘To sum it all up in one sentence, it is 
the control of politics and of our life by great combi- 
nations of wealth. Men sometimes talk as if it were 
wealth we were afraid of, as if we were jealous of the 
accumulation of great fortunes. Nothing of the kind 
is true. America has not the slightest jealousy of the 
legitimate accumulation of wealth. Everybody knows 
that there are hundreds and thousands of men of large 
means and large economic power who have come by it 
all perfectly legitimately not only, but in a way that 
deserves the thanks and admiration of the communities 
they have served and developed. But everybody knows 
also that some of the men who control the wealth and 
have built up the industry of the country seek to control 


COLLEGE AND STATE 287 


politics and also to dominate the life of common men in 
a way in which no man should be permitted to dominate. 

In the first place, there is the notorious operation of . 
the bipartisan political machine: I mean the machine 
which does not represent party principle of any kind, 
but which is willing to enter into any combination, with 
whatever group of persons or of politicians, to control 
the offices of localities and of States and of the nation 
itself in order to maintain the power of those who direct 
it. ‘Chis machine is supplied with its funds by the men 
who use it in order to protect themselves against legis- 
lation which they do not desire and in order to obtain 
the legislation which is necessary for the prosecution, 
of their purposes. 

The methods of our legislatures make the operations 
of such machines easy and convenient, for very little 
of our legislation is formed and effected by open debate 
upon the floor. Almost all of it is framed in lawyers’ 
offices, discussed in committee rooms, passed without 
debate. Bills that the machine and its backers do not 
desire are smothered in committee; measures which 
they do desire are brought out and hurried through 
their passage. It happens again and again that great 
groups of such bills are rushed through in the hurried 
hours that mark the close of the legislative sessions, 
when every one is withheld from vigilance by fatigue 
and when it is possible to do secret things. 

When we stand in the presence of these things and 
see how complete and sinister their operation has been 
we cry out with no little truth that we no longer have 
representative government. 

Among the remedies proposed in recent years have 
been the initiative and referendum in the field of legis- 
lation and the recall in the field of administration. These 
measures are supposed to be characteristic of the most 
radical programmes, and they are supposed to be meant 
to change the very character of our government. They 
have no such purpose. ‘Their intention is to restore, 


288 COLLEGE AND STATE 


not to destroy, representative government. It must be 
remembered by every candid man who discusses these 
matters that we are contrasting the operation of the 
initiative and the referendum, not with the representa- 
tive government which we possess in theory and which 
we have long persuaded ourselves that we possessed in 
fact, but with the actual state of affairs, with legislative 
processes which are carried on in secret, responding to 
the impulse of subsidized machines and carried through 
by men whose unhappiness it is to realize that they are 
not their own masters, but puppets in a game. 

If we felt that we had genuine representative goy- 
ernment in our State legislatures no one would propose 
the initiative or referendum in America. ‘They are be- 
ing proposed now as a means of bringing our representa- 
tives back to the consciousness that what they are bound 
in duty and in mere policy to do is to represent the 
sovereign people whom they profess to serve and not the 
private interests which creep into their counsels by way 
of machine orders and committee conferences. The 
most ardent and successful advocates of the initiative 
and referendum regard them as a sobering means of 
obtaining genuine representative action on the part of 
legislative bodies. ‘They do not mean to set anything 
aside. ‘They mean to restore and reinvigorate, rather. 

The recall is a means of administrative control. If 
properly regulated and devised it is a means of restor- 
ing to administrative officials what the initiative and 
referendum restore to legislators—namely, a sense of 
direct responsibility to the people who chose them. 

The recall of judges is another matter. Judges are 
not lawmakers. They are not administrators. Their 
duty is not to determine what the law shall be, but to 
determine what the law is. Their independence, their 
sense of dignity and of freedom, is of the first conse- 
quence to the stability of the state. To apply to them the 
principle of the recall is to set up the idea that deter- 
minations of what the law is must respond to popular 


COLLEGE AND STATE 289 


impulse and to popular judgment. It is sufficient that 
the people should have the power to change the law 
when they will. It is not necessary that they should 
directly influence by threat of recall those who merely 
interpret the law already established. The importance 
and desirability of the recall as a means of administra- 
tive control ought not to be obscured by drawing it 
into this other and very different field. 

The second power we fear is the control of our life - 
through the vast privileges of corporations which use 
the wealth of masses of men to sustain their enterprise. 
It is in connection with this danger that it is necessary 
to do some of our clearest and frankest thinking. It is 
a fundamental mistake to speak of the privileges of these 
great corporations as if they fell within the class of 
private right and of private property. Those who 
administer the affairs of great joint stock companies are 
really administering the property of communities, the 
property of the whole mass and miscellany of men who 
have bought the stock or the bonds that sustain the 
enterprise. The stocks and the bonds are constantly 
changing hands. There is no fixed partnership. More- 
over, managers of such corporations are the trustees of 
moneys which they themselves never accumulated, but 
which have been drawn together out of private savings 
here, there, and everywhere. 

What is necessary in order to rectify the whole mass 
of business of this kind is that those who control it 
should entirely change their point of view. ‘They are 
trustees, not masters, of private property, not only 
because their power is derived from a multitude of men, 
but also because in its investment it affects a multitude 
of men. It determines the development or decay of 
communities. It is the means of lifting or depressing 
the life of the whole country. They must regard them- 
selves as representatives of a public power. There can 
be no reasonable jealousy of public regulation in such 
matters, because the opportunities of all men are 


290 COLLEGE AND STATE 


affected. Their property is everywhere touched, their 
savings are everywhere absorbed, their employment is 
everywhere determined, by these great agencies. What 
we need, therefore, is to come to a common view which 
will not bring antagonisms, but accommodations. ‘The 
programmes of parties must now be programmes of en- 
lightenment and readjustment, not revolutionary, but 
restorative. ‘The processes of change are largely proc- 
esses of thought, but unhappily they cannot be effected 
without becoming political processes also, and that is 
the deep responsibility of public men. What we need, 
therefore, in our politics is an instant alignment of all 
men free and willing to think, and to act without fear 
upon their thought. 

This is just as much a constructive age in politics, 
therefore, as was the great age in which our Federal 
government was set up, and the man who does not 
awake to the opportunity, the man who does not sacri- 
fice private and exceptional interests in order to serve' 
the common and public interest, is declining to take part 
in the business of a heroic age. I am sorry for the 
man who is so blind that he does not see the opportunity, 
and I am happy in the confidence that in this era men 
of strength and of principle will see their opportunity 
of immortal service. 

I am not one of those who wish to break connections 
with the past, nor am I one of those who wish change 
for the mere sake of variety. The only men who do 
that are the men who want to forget something, the 
men who filled yesterday with something they would 
rather not recall to-day. Change is not interesting 
unless it is constructive, and it is an age of construction 
that must put fire into the blood of any man worthy 
of the name. 


THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 


ADDRESS IN THE AUDITORIUM, DENVER, AT THE TER- 
CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE TRANSLATION 
OF THE BIBLE INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, MAY 
7, I9I1I. FROM “CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,” 62D 
CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, APPENDIX 499- 
502. 


R. PRESIDENT, ladies and gentlemen, the 
thought that entered my mind first as I came into 
this great room this evening framed itself in a question, 
Why should this great body of people have come to- 
gether upon this solemn night? ‘There is nothing here 
tobe seen. There is nothing delectable here to be heard. 
Why should you run together in a great host when all 
that is to be spoken of is the history of a familiar book? 
But as I have sat and looked upon this great body of 
people I have thought of the very suitable circumstance 
that here upon the platform sat a little group of min- 
isters of the gospel lost in this great throng. 

I say the “suitable circumstance,” for I come here 
to-night to speak of the Bible as the book of the people, . 
not the book of the minister of the gospel, not the 
special book of the priest from which to set forth some 
occult, unknown doctrine withheld from the common 
understanding of men, but a great book of revelation— 
the people’s book of revelation. For it seems to me that 
the Bible has revealed the people to themselves. I 
wonder how many persons in this great audience realize 
the significance for English-speaking peoples of the 
translation of the Bible into the English tongue. Up 
to the time of the translation of the Bible into English, 
it was a book for long ages withheld from the perusal 

291 


292 | COLLEGE AND STATE 


of the peoples of other languages and of other tongues, 
and not a little of the history of liberty lies in the cir- 
cumstance that the moving sentences of this book were 
made familiar to the ears and the understandings of 
those peoples who have led mankind in exhibiting the 
forms of government and the impulses of reform which 
have made for freedom and for self-government among 
mankind. | 

For this is a book which reveals men unto themselves, 
not as creatures in bondage, not as men under human 
authority, not as those bidden to take counsel and com- 
mand of any human source. It reveals every man to 
himself as a distinct moral agent, responsible not to men, 
not even to those mén whom he has put over him in 
authority, but responsible through his own conscience 
to his Lord and Maker. Whenever a man sees this 
vision he stands up a free man, whatever may be the 
government under which he lives, if he sees beyond the 
circumstances of his own life. 

I heard a very eloquent sermon to-day from an hon- 
oured gentleman who Is with us to-night. He was speak- 
ing upon the effect of a knowledge of the future life 
upon our conduct in this life. And it seemed to me that 
as I listened to him I saw the flames of those fires re- 
kindled at which the martyrs died—died forgetful of 
their pain, with praise and thanksgiving upon their lips, 
that they had the opportunity to render their testimony 
that this was not the life for which they had lived, but 
that there was a house builded in the heavens, not built 
of men, but built of God, to the vision of which they 
had lifted their eyes as they passed through the world, 
which gave them courage to fear no man, but to serve 
God. And I thought that all the records of heroism, 
of the great things that had illustrated human life, were 
summed up in the power of men to see that vision. 

Our present life, ladies and gentlemen, is a very im- 
perfect and disappointing thing. We do not judge our 
own conduct in the privacy of our own closets by the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 293 


standard of expediency by which we are daily end hourly 
governed. We know that there is a standard set for 
us in the heavens, a standard revealed to us in this book 
which is the fixed and eternal standard by which we 
judge ourselves, and as we read this book it seems to 
us that the pages of our own hearts are laid open before 
us for our own perusal. ‘This is the people’s book of 
revelation, revelation of themselves not alone, but reve- 
lation of life and of peace. You know that human life 
is a constant struggle. For a man who has lost the 
sense of struggle life has ceased. 

I believe that my confidence in the judgment of the 
people in matters political is based upon my knowledge 
that the men who are struggling are the men who know; 
that the men who are in the midst of the great effort 
to keep themselves steady in the pressure and rush of 
life are the men who know the significance of the pres- 
sure and the rush of life, and that they, the men on the 
make, are the men to whom to go for your judgments 
of what life is and what its problems are. And in this 
book there is peace simply because we read here the 
object of the struggle. No man is satisfied with himself 
as the object of the struggle. 

There is a very interesting phrase that constantly 
comes to our lips which we perhaps do not often enough 
interpret in its true meaning. We see many a young 
man start out in life with apparently only this object 
in view—to make name and fame and power for himself, 
and there comes a time of maturity and reflection when 
we say of him, ‘‘He has come to himself.’’? When may 
I say that I have come to myself? Only when I have 
come to recognize my true relations with the rest of the 
world. We speak of a man losing himself in a desert. 
If you reflect a moment you will see that is the only 
thing he has not lost. He himself is there. What he 
means when he says that he has lost himself is that 
he has lost all the rest of the world. He has nothing 
to steer by. He does not know where any human habi- 


294 COLLEGE AND STATE 


tation lies. He does not know where any beaten path 
and highway is. If he could establish his relationship 
with anything else in the world he would have found 
himself. Let it serve as a picture. 

A man has found himself when he has found his 
relation to the rest of the universe, and here is the 
book in which those relations are set forth. And so 
when you see a man going along the highways of life 
with his gaze lifted above the road, lifted to the sloping 
ways in front of him, then be careful of that man and 
get out of his way. He knows the kingdom for which 
he is bound. He has seen the revelation of himself and 
of his relations to mankind. He has seen the revelations 
of his relation to God and his Maker, and therefore 
he has seen his responsibility in the world. This is the 
revelation of life and of peace. I do not know that 
peace lies in constant accommodation. I was once asked 
if I would take part in a great peace conference, and 
I said, ‘Yes; if I may speak in favour of war’’—not the 
war which we seek to avoid, not the senseless and use- 
less and passionate shedding of human blood, but the 
only war that brings peace, the war with human passions 
and the war with human wrong—the war which is that 
untiring and unending process of reform from which 
no man can refrain and get peace. 

No man can sit down and withhold his hands from 
the warfare against wrong and get peace out of his ac- 
quiescence. The most solid and satisfying peace is that 
which comes from this constant spiritual warfare, and 
there are times in the history of nations when they must 
take up the crude instruments of bloodshed in order to 
vindicate spiritual conceptions. For liberty is a spiritual 
conception, and when men take up arms to set other 
men free, there is something sacred and holy in the 
warfare. I will not cry “peace” so long as there is sin 
and wrong in the world. And this great book does not 
teach any doctrine of peace so long as there is sin to 


COLEEGE- AND SATE 295 


be combated and overcome in one’s own heart and in 
the great moving force of human society. 

And so it seems to me that we must look upon the 
Bible as the great charter of the human soul—as the 
‘Magna Charta’”’ of the human soul. You know the 
interesting circumstances which gave rise to the Magna 
Charta. You know the moving scene that was enacted 
upon the heath at Runnymede. You know how the 
barons of England, representing the people of England 
—for they consciously represented the people of Eng- 
land—met upon that historic spot and parleyed with 
John, the King. ‘They said, ‘We will come to terms 
with you here.” They said, ‘“There are certain inalien- 
able rights of English-speaking men which you must 
observe. ‘They are not given by you, they cannot be 
taken away by you. Sign your name here to this parch- 
ment upon which these rights are written and we are 
your subjects. Refuse to put your name to this docu- 
ment and we are your sworn enemies. Here are our 
swords to prove it.” 

The franchise of human liberty made the basis of 
a bargain with a king. There are kings upon the pages 
of Scripture, but do you think of any king in Scripture 
as anything else than a mere man? ‘There was the great 
King David, of a line blessed because the line from 
which should spring our Lord and Saviour, a man marked 
in the history of mankind as the chosen instrument of 
God to do justice and exalt righteousness in the people. 

But what does this Bible do for David? Does it 
utter eulogies upon him? Does it conceal his faults and 
magnify his virtues? Does it set him up as a great 
statesman would be set up in a modern biography? No; 
the book in which his annals are written strips the mask 
from David, strips every shred of counterfeit and con- 
cealment from him and shows him as indeed an instru- 
ment of God, but a sinful and selfish man, and the ver- 
dict of the Bible is that David, like other men, was one 
day to stand naked before the judgment seat of God 


296 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and be judged not as a king but as a man. Is not this 
the book of the people? Is there any man in this Holy 
Scripture who is exempted from the common standard 
and judgment? How these pages teem with the masses 
of mankind. Are these the annals of the great? These 
are the annals of the people—of the common run of 
men. 

The New Testament is the history of the life and the 
testimony of common men who rallied to the fellowship 
of Jesus Christ and who by their faith and preaching 
remade a world that was under the thrall of the Roman 
army. ‘This is the history of the triumph of the human 
spirit, in the persons of humble men. And how many 
sorts of men march across the pages, how infinite is 
the variety of human circumstance and of human deal- 
ings and of human heroism and love! Is this a picture 
of extraordinary things? This is a picture of the com- 
mon life of mankind. It is a mirror held up for men’s 
hearts, and it is in this mirror that we marvel to see our- 
selves portrayed. 

How like to the Scripture is all great literature! 
What is it that entrances us when we read or witness 
a play of Shakespeare? It is the consciousness that this 
man, this all-observing mind, saw men of every cast and 
kind as they were in their habits, as they lived. And 
as passage succeeds passage we seem to see the charac- 
ters of ourselves and our friends portrayed by this an- 
cient writer, and a play of Shakespeare is just as modern 
to-day as upon the day it was penned and first enacted. 
And the Bible is without age or date or time. It is a 
picture of the human heart displayed for all ages and 
for all sorts and conditions of men. Moreover, the 
Bible does what is so invaluable in human life—it classi- 
fies moral values. It apprises us that men are not 
judged according to their wits, but according to their 
characters—that the last of every man’s reputation is 
his truthfulness, his squaring his conduct with the stand- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 297 


ards that he knew to be the standards of purity and rec- 
titude. 

How many a man we appraise, ladies and gentlemen, 
as great to-day whom we do not admire as noble! A 
man may have great power and small character. And 
the sweet praise of mankind lies not in their admiration 
of the smartness with which the thing was accomplished, 
but in that lingering love which apprises men that one 
of their fellows has gone out of life to his own reckon- 
ing, where he is sure of the blessed verdict, ‘‘Well done, 
good and faithful servant.” 

Did you ever look about you in any great city, in any 
great capital, at the statues which have been erected 
in it? ‘To whom are these statues erected? Are they 
erected to the men who have piled fortunes about them? 
I do not know of any such statue anywhere, unless after 
he had accumulated his fortune the man bestowed it in 
beneficence upon his fellow-men, and alongside of him 
will stand a statue of another meaning, for it is easy 
to give money away. I heard a friend of mine say that 
the standard of generosity was not the amount you gave 
away, but the amount you had left. It is easy to give 
away of your abundance; but look at the next statue, the 
next statue, and the next in the market place of great 
cities, and whom will you see? You will see here a 
soldier who gave his life to serve, not his own ends, 
but the interests and the purposes of his country. 

I would be the last, ladies and gentlemen, to disparage 
any of the ordinary occupations of life, but I want to 
ask you this question: Did you ever see anybody who ~ 
had lost a son hang up his yardstick over the mantel- 
piece? Have you not seen many families who had lost 
their sons hang up their muskets and their swords over 
the mantelpiece? What is the difference between the 
yardstick and the musket? ‘There is nothing but per- 
fect honour in the use of the yardstick, but the yard- 
stick was used for the man’s own interest, for his own 
self-support. It was used merely to fulfill the necessary 


298 COLLEGE AND STATE 


exigencies of life, whereas the musket was used to serve 
no possible purpose of his own. He took every risk 
without any possibility of profit. The musket is the 
symbol of self-sacrifice and the yardstick is not. A man 
will instinctively elevate the one as the symbol of 
honour and never dream of using the other as a symbol 
of distinction. 

Doesn’t that cut pretty deep, and don’t you know 
why the soldier has his monument as against the civil- 
ian’s? The civilian may have served his State—he also 
—and here and there you may see a statesman’s statue, 
but the civilian has generally served his country—has 
often served his country, at any rate—with some idea 
of promoting his own interests, whereas the soldier has 
everything to lose and nothing but the gratitude of his 
fellow-men to win. 

Let every man pray that he may in some true sense 
be a soldier of fortune, that he may have the good for- 
tune to spend his energies and his life in the service of 
his fellow-men in order that he may die to be recorded 
upon the rolls of those who have not thought of them- 
selves but have thought of those whom they served. 
Isn’t this the lesson of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ? Am [J not reminding you of these common judg- 
ments of our life, simply expounding to you this book 
of revelation, this book which reveals the common man 
to himself, which strips life of its disguises and its pre- 
tenses and elevates those standards by which alone true 
greatness and true strength and true valour are assessed? 

Do you wonder, therefore, that when I was asked 
what my theme this evening would be I said it would 
be ‘“The Bible and Progress’? We do not judge prog- 
ress by material standards. America is not ahead of 
the other nations of the world because she is rich. Noth- 
ing makes America great except her thoughts, except 
her ideals, except her acceptance of those standards of 
judgment which are written large upon these pages of 
revelation. America has all along claimed the distinc- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 299 


tion of setting this example to the civilized world—that 
men were to think of one another, that governments 
were to be set up for the service of the people, that 
men were to be judged by these moral standards which 
pay no regard to rank or birth or conditions, but which 
assess every man according to his single and individual 
value. This is the meaning of this charter of the human 
soul. This is the standard by which men and nations 
have more and more come to be judged. And so the 
form has consisted in nothing more nor less than this— 
in trying to conform actual conditions, in trying to square 
actual laws with the right judgments of human conduct 
and more than liberty. 

That is the reason that the Bible has stood at the 
back of progress. That is the reason that reform has 
come not from the top but from the bottom. If you are 
ever tempted to let a government reform itself, I ask 
you to look back in the pages of history and find me a 
government that reformed itself. If you are ever 
tempted to let a party attempt to reform itself, I ask 
you to find a party that ever reformed itself. 

A tree is not nourished by its bloom and by its fruit. 
It is nourished by its roots, which are down deep in 
the common and hidden soil, and every process of puri- 
fication and rectification comes from the bottom—not 
from the top. It comes from the masses of struggling 
human beings. It comes from the instinctive efforts of 
millions of human hearts trying to beat their way up 
into the light and into the hope of the future. 

Parties are reformed and governments are corrected 
by the impulses coming out of the hearts of those who 
never exercised authority and never organized parties. 
Those are the sources of strength, and I pray God that 
these sources may never cease to be spiritualized by the 
immortal subjections of these words of inspiration of 
the Bible. 

If any statesman sunk in the practices which debase 
a nation will but read this single book, he will go to 


300 COLLEGE AND STATE 


_ his prayers abashed. Do you not realize, ladies and 
gentlemen, that there is a whole literature in the Bible? 
It is not one book, but a score of books. Do you realize 
what literature is? I am sometimes sorry to see the 
great classics of our English literature used in the 
schools as textbooks, because I am afraid that little 
children may gain the impression that these are formal 
lessons to be learned. There is no great book in any 
language, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the spon- 
taneous outpouring of some great mind on the cry of 
some great heart. And the reason that poetry moves 
us more than prose does is that it is the rhythmic and 
passionate voice of some great spirit that has seen more 
than his fellow-men can see. 

I have found more true politics in the poets of the 
English-speaking race than I have ever found in all 
the formal treatises on political science. There is more 
of the spirit of our own institutions in a few lines of 
Tennyson than in all the textbooks on governments put 
together: 


A nation still, the rules and the ruled, 

Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 

Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 
Some patient force to change them when we will, 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd. 


Can you find summed up the manly, self-helping spirit 
of Saxon liberty anywhere better than in those few lines? 
Men afraid of nobody, afraid of nothing but their own 
passions, on guard against being caught unaware by 
their own sudden impulses and so getting their grapple 
upon life in firm-set institutions, some reverence for the 
laws themselves have made, some patience, not passion- 
ate force, to change them when they will, some civic 
manhood firm against the crowd. Literature, ladies 
and gentlemen, is revelation of the human spirit, and 
within the covers of this one book is a whole lot of 
literature, prose and poetry, history and rhapsody, the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 301 


sober narration of the ecstasy of human excitement— 
things that ring in one’s ears like songs never to be for- 
gotten. And so I say let us never forget that these deep 
sources, these wells of inspiration, must always be our 
sources of refreshment and of renewal. Then no man 
can put unjust power upon us. We shall live in that 
chartered liberty in which a man sees the things unseen, 
in which he knows that he is bound for a country in 
which there are no questions mooted any longer of right 
or wrong. 

Can you imagine a man who did not believe these 
words, who did not believe in the future life, standing 
up and doing what has been the heart and center of 
liberty always—standing up before the king himself and 
saying, “Sir, you have sinned and done wrong in the 
sight of God, and I am His messenger of judgment to 
pronounce upon you the condemnation of Almighty God. 
You may silence me, you may send me to my reckoning 
with my Maker, but you cannot silence or reverse the 
judgment.” ‘That is what a man feels whose faith is 
rooted in the Bible. And the man whose faith is rooted 
in the Bible knows that reform cannot be stayed, that 
the finger of God that moves upon the face of the na- 
tions is against every man that plots the nation’s down- 
fall or the people’s deceit; that these men are simply 
groping and staggering in their ignorance to a fearful 
day of judgment; and that whether one generation wit- 
nesses it or not the glad day of revelation and of free- 
dom will come in which men will sing by the host of the 
coming of the Lord in His glory, and all of those will be 
forgotten—those little, scheming, contemptible crea- 
tures that forgot the image of God and tried to frame 
men according to the image of the evil one. 

You may remember that allegorical narrative in the 
Old ‘Testament of those who searched through one cav- 
ern after another, cutting the holes in the walls and 
going into the secret places where all sorts of noisome 
things were worshipped. Men do not dare to let the 


302 COLLEGE AND STATE 


sun shine in upon such things and upon such occupations 
and worships. And so I say there will be no halt to the 
great movement of the armies of reform until men 
forget their God, until they forget this charter of their 
liberty. Let no man suppose that progress can be 
divorced from religion or that there is any other plat- 
form for the ministers of reform than the platform 
_ written in the utterances of our Lord and Saviour. 

America was born a Christian nation. America was 
born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of right- 
eousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy 
Scripture. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to 
ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in this audi- 
ence that from this night on they will realize that part 
of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of 
this great book of revelations—that if they would see 
America free and pure they will make their own spirits 
free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Scripture. 


DEMOCRACY’S OPPORTUNITY 


ADDRESS AT RALLY OF DEMOCRATIC CLUBS AT HARRIS- 
BURG, PENNSYLVANIA, JUNE I5, I9II. FROM 
“THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D 
SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, APPENDIX, 519-520. 


We are met here to renew our allegiance to the great 
party which we serve and to take counsel with re- 
gard to its welfare. A great work waits to be done for 
the country—a great work of counsel and of action. It 
calls its challenge to every man who desires to serve and 
has no fear. Are we wise and strong and sober and 
united enough to do it? Have we the knowledge, the 
self-possession, the poise, the courage? Are we the 
men? The country shall decide, but it is within our 
choice to deserve its confidence and concert a course 
of patriotic action which should commend us to all just 
and purposeful men. 

There has, first and last, been a great deal of idle 
talk about divisions in the Democratic party, and men 
here and there have spoken as if it were possible for this 
individual or that to disrupt it and to break the splendid 
continuity of its history. Men who speak such empty 
predictions are forgetful of the history of the party. 
It is the one party in the United States which has con- 
tinued unbroken from the beginning of our national 
history until now. Other parties have risen and fallen, 
have come into existence and passed utterly away, but 
the Democratic party has renewed itself from genera- 
tion to generation with an indomitable youth. It is 
never the party of the past, but always the party of the 
present and the future, always taking new life with the 
changing circumstances of the nation. 

303 


304 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Whenever things are to be done in a new way, in 
response to a new popular impulse, in obedience to the 
great democratic traditions of the nation itself, it is to 
the Democratic party that the country naturally turns. 
It has been spoken of as the party of opposition, the 
party of protest, and its long, unbroken party history 
has been attributed to the fact that it did not attempt 
a constructive programme, but was always critical and 
on the defensive, always harking back to ideals set up at 
the foundation of the government, to which it was never 
wholly possible for it to adjust its own actual policies. 
But, although there have been times when this charac- 
terization of it would seem to have been justified by the 
fact, the history of the country abounds in instances 
when our great party showed itself constructive and 
aggressive, not protesting, but performing, not criticis- 
ing, but projecting great reforms. Other parties have 
tied themselves up to particular lines of action to which 
they presently became wholly subject, upon which they 
at length became dependent, but the Democratic party 
has remained free to act, free to take on the new ele- 
ments of popular impulse, free to read new times in 
new terms. 

Its freedom is now about to serve it in an ex- 
traordinary degree. Those who look about them see 
parties apparently breaking up; but if they will look 
closer what they will see is simply this, that men are 
turning away by the thousands from those courses of 
policy and of action to which the alliances and practices 
of the Republican party have at last bound the country 
as if with a grip of iron. The free elements of thought 
in the country are asserting themselves with an extraor- 
dinary energy and majesty that must presently work 
profound changes and mark this as one of the most 
noteworthy eras of our politics. But they are not exert- 
ing themselves to destroy, they are exerting themselves, 
rather, to find means of cooperation and action. Some 
men among the Republican leaders see what it is neces- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 305 


sary to do, but they are not numerous enough to dom- 
inate their party counsels; they cannot turn or guide the 
great organization of their party in the direction of 
the desired reforms. The great mass of voters in the 
country perceive this. They are looking, therefore, 
with great expectation toward the Democratic party 
to see if it will now, at this critical juncture, prove true 
to its traditions and supply them with men and measures. 

The Democratic party has always had the impulse of 
reform because it has always been based upon deep and 
fundamental sympathy with the interests of the people 
at large. It has now only to prove that its impulse 
can find expression in a wise and feasible programme 
in order to capture both the imagination and the allegi- 
ance of the country. It is this power of self-removal, 
this power of looking forward, this power of realizing 
the present and projecting itself into the future that 
has kept it young and which must now make it the party 
of young men, the party to which those must resort 
who are coming for the first time into the activities of 
politics; with which those must ally themselves whose 
hopes are forming into purposes, whose impulses are 
framing themselves by sober thought into concrete judg- 
ments, who know what they want and are fast finding 
out by what means they can get what they want. 

If we recount the items of the liberal programme to 
which the country is now looking forward, it will be 
easy to see that it is already the programme of the 
Democratic party. ‘The first item of that programme 
is that the machinery of political control must be put 
in the hands of the people. ‘That means, translated into 
concrete terms, direct primaries, a short ballot, and, 
wherever necessary, the initiative, the referendum, and 
the recall. These things are being desired and obtained, 
not by way of revolution, not even with a desire to 
effect any fundamental change in our governmental 
system, but for the purpose of recovering what seems 
to have been lost—the people’s control of their own 


306 COLLEGE AND STATE 


instruments, their right to exercise a free and constant 
choice in the management of their own affairs. 

Another great item of the programme is that the 
service rendered the people by the national government 
must be of a more extended sort and of a kind not only 
to protect it against monopoly, but also to facilitate its 
life. We are, therefore, in favour of postal savings 
banks and of a parcel post, and feel with some chagrin 
that we have lagged behind the other free nations of 
the world in establishing those manifestly useful and 
necessary instruments of our common life. 

The revision of the tariff, of course, looms big and 
_ central in the programme, because it is in the tariff sched- 
ules that half the monopolies of the country have found 
covert and protection and opportunity. We do not 
mean to strike at any essential economic arrangement, 
but we do mean to drive all beneficiaries of govern- 
mental policy into the open and demand of them by 
what principle of national advantage, as contrasted 
with selfish privilege, they enjoy the extraordinary as- 
sistance extended to them. 

The regulation of corporations is hardly less signi- 
ficant and central. We have made many experiments in 
this dificult matter, and some of them have been crude 
and hurtful, but our thought is slowly clearing. We are 
beginning to see, for one thing, how public service cor- 
porations, at any rate, can be governed with great ad- 
vantage to the public and without serious detriment to 
themselves, as undertakings of private capital. Ex- 
perience is removing both prejudice and fear in this 
field, and it is likely that within the very near future 
we shall have settled down to some common, rational 
and effective policy. ‘The regulation of corporations 
of other sorts lies intimately connected with the general 
question of monopoly, a question which ramifies in a 
thousand directions, but the intricate threads of which, 
we are slowly beginning to perceive, constitute a de- 
cipherable pattern. Measures will here also frame 


COLLEGE AND STATE 307 


themselves soberly enough as we think our way for- 
ward. 

Again there is the great question of conservation. 
We are not yet clear as to all the methods, but we are 
absolutely clear as to the principle and the intention 
and shall not be satisfied until we have found the way, 
not only to preserve our great national resources, but 
also to conserve the strength and health and energy of 
our people themselves by protection against wrongful 
forms of labour and by securing them against the myriad 
forms of harm which have come from the selfish uses 
of economic power. 

Beyond all these, waiting to be solved, lying as yet 
in the hinterland of party policy, lurks the great ques- 
tion of banking reform. The plain fact is that control 
of credit—at any rate of credit upon any large scale— 
is dangerously concentrated in this country. ‘The large 
money resources of the country are not at the command 
of those who do not submit to the direction and domi- 
nation of small groups of capitalists, who wish to keep 
the economic development of the country under their 
own eye and guidance. ‘The great monopoly in this 
country is the money monopoly. So long as that exists 
our old variety and freedom and individual energy of 
development are out of the question. A great indus- 
trial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our 
system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the 
nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands 
of a few men who, even if their action be honest and 
intended for the public interest, are necessarily concen- 
trated upon the great undertakings in which their own 
money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason 
of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy 
genuine economic freedom. ‘This is the greatest ques- 
tion of all, and to this statesmen must address them- 
selves with an earnest determination to serve the long 
future and the true liberties of men. 

I have said that the Democratic party is now to 


308 COLLEGE AND STATE 


attempt constructive statesmanship. There are well- 
known conditions which surround so great a task. In 
the first place it cannot be executed if attempted with 
inconsiderate haste. ‘That is not constructive which is 
loosely or hastily put together. Its parts must be sound, 
and their combination must be true and vital. No man 
can in a moment put great policies together and recon- 
struct a whole order of life. 

We must remember that the abuses we seek to remedy 
have come into existence as incidents of the great struc- 
ture of industry we have built up. This structure is the 
work of our own hands; our own lives are involved in 
it. Reckless attacks upon it, destructive assaults against 
it would jeopardize our own lives and disturb, it might 
be fatally, the very progress we seek to attain. It 
would be particularly fatal to any successful programme 
to admit into our minds, as we pursue it, any spirit of 
revenge, any purpose to wreak our displeasure upon the 
persons and the institutions who now represent the 
abuses we deprecate and seek to destroy. I do not say 
these things because I feel that there is danger of venge- 
ful action or of revolutionary haste, but merely because 
we ought always to recognize that it is of the very 
essence of constructive statesmanship that we should 
think and act temperately, wisely, justly, in the spirit 
of those who reconstruct and amend, not in the spirit 
of those who destroy and seek to build from the founda- 
tions again. 

The American people are an eminently just and an 
intensely practical people. ‘They do not wish to lay 
violent hands upon their own affairs, but they do claim 
the right to look them over with close and frank and 
fearless scrutiny from top to bottom; to look at them 
from within as well as from without, in their most in- 
timate and private details, as well as in their obvious 
exterior proportions; and they do hold themselves at 
liberty, attacking one point at a time, to readjust, cor- 
rect, purify, rearrange; not destroying or even injuring 


COLLEGE AND STATE 309 


the elements, but filling their altered combination with 
a new spirit. This is the task of the Democratic party. 
It is the task of all statesmanship. It is a task which 
just at this particular juncture in our affairs looms 
particularly big. It is not ominous, but inviting; not 
alarming, but inspiriting. We should congratulate our- 
selves that we have an opportunity to take part in the 
true spirit of those who would serve a great country, 
in a task which may recover for America her old happi- 
ness and confidence, her old spirit of triumphant democ- 
racy. 





THE LAWYER IN POLITICS. 


ADDRESS BEFORE THE KENTUCKY BAR ASSOCIATION AT 
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, JULY 12, I9II. FROM 
‘THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,” 62D CONGRESS, 2D 
SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, APPENDIX, 498-499. 


M& PRESIDENT, ladies and gentlemen, the law- 

yer is, by very definition, an expert in the law; and 
society lives by law. Without it its life is vague, in- 
choate, disordered, vexed with a hopeless instability. 
At every turn of its experience society tries to express its 
life, therefore, in law—to make the rules of its action 
universal and imperative. This is the whole process of 
politics. Politics is the struggle for law, for an institu- 
tional expression of the changing life of society. 

Of course, this'is the deeper view of politics. It is not 
the view of the mere party man or of the professional 
politician. He thinks chiefly, no doubt, of the offices 
and their emoluments; of the tenure of power; of the 
choice of policy from day to day in the administration 
of the various departments of government; of the hun- 
dred advantages, both personal and partisan, which 
can be obtained in a successful contest for the control 
of the instruments of politics; but even he cannot escape 
the deeper view at last. He must express the policy of 
his party or the advantage gained by his occupation of 
office in statutes, in rules of law, imposed in the interest 
of some class or group, if not in the interest of society 
at large. He is really, in the last analysis, struggling 
to control Iaw and the development and use of institu- 
tions. He needs as much as the statesman does the as- 
sistance of the legal expert, the skill of the technical 

310 


COLLEGE AND STATE 311 


guide; the lawyer must be at his elbow to see that he 
plays the game according to the nominal rules. 

The lawyer, therefore, has always been indispensable, 
whether he merely guided the leaders or was himself 
the leader, and nowhere has the lawyer played a more 
prominent part in politics than in England and America, 
where the rules of law have always been the chief in- 
struments of contest and regulation, of liberty and efh- 
cient organization, and the chief means of lifting society 
from one stage to the next of its slow development. 

The lawyer’s ideal part in this unending struggle is 
easy to conceive. ‘There is long experience stored up 
in the history of law. He, above all other men, should 
have a quick perception of what is feasible, of the new 
things that will fit into the old, of the experiences which 
should be heeded, the wrongs that should be remedied, 
and the rights that should be more completely realized. 
He knows out of his own practice how pitiful, often- 
times, against how many obstacles, amidst how many 
impediments, often interposed by the law itself, some- 
times interposed by the ignorance of society or by the 
malevolence of designing men, the men about him make 
their daily effort to live free from the unnecessary inter- 
ference or the selfish stupidity or the organized opposi- 
tion of their neighbours and rivals. He knows what 
forces gather and work their will in the field of indus- 
try, of commerce, of all enterprise. He, if any man, 
knows where justice breaks down, where law needs am- 
plification or amendment or radical change, what the 
alterations are that must be effected before the right 
will come into action easily and certainly and with gen- 
uine energy. He should at every turn be the mediator 
between groups of men, between all contending and con- 
testing interests. He should show how differences are 
to be moderated, and antagonisms adjusted and society 
given peace and ease of movement. 

He can play this ideal part, however, only if he has 
the right insight and sympathy. If he regards his prac- 


R12 COLLEGE AND STATE 


tice as a mere means of livelihood, if he is satisfied to 
put his expert advice at the service of any interest or 
enterprise, if he does not regard himself as an officer 
of the State, but only as an agent of private interest, if, 
above all, he does not really see the wrongs that are 
accumulating, the mischief that is being wrought, the 
hearts that are being broken and the lives that are being 
wrecked, the hopes that are being snuffed out and the 
energies that are being sapped, he cannot play the part 
of guide or moderator or adviser in the large sense that 
will make him a statesman and a benefactor. 

It is a hard thing to exact of him, no doubt, that he 
should have a non-professional attitude toward law, that 
he should be more constantly conscious of his duties as 
a citizen than of his interests as a practitioner, but 
nothing less than that will fit him to play the really great 
role intended for his profession in the great plot of 
affairs. He must breed himself in the true philosophy 
of his calling. It is his duty to see from the point of 
view of all sorts and conditions of men, of the men 
whom he is not directly serving as well as of those whom 
he is directly serving. 

This is a matter of character, of disposition, and of 
training outside the schools of law, in the broader 
schools of duty and of citizenship and of patriotism. 
It is a great conception when once a lawyer has filled 
himself with it. It lifts him oftentimes to a very high 
place of vision and of inspiration. It makes of him the 
custodian of the honour and integrity of a great social 
order, an instrument of humanity, because an instrument 
of justice and fair dealing and of all those right adjust- 
ments of life that make the world fit to live in. 

If I contrast with this ideal conception of the func- 
tion of the lawyer in society what I may be excused for 
calling his actual role in the struggle for law and prog- 
ress and the renovation of affairs, I hope that I will 
not be interpreted as suggesting a view of our great 
profession which is in any wise touched with cynicism or 


COLLEGE AND STATE 313 


even with the spirit of harsh criticism. The facts do 
not justify a cynical view of the profession or even a 
fear that it may be permanently losing the spirit which 
has ruled the action of the greater members of the bar 
and of the immortal judges who have presided at the 
birth and given strength and fibre to the growth and 
liberty and human right. I wish to submit what I have 
to say in all fairness and without colour even of discour- 
agement. 

The truth is that the technical training of the modern 
American lawyer, his professional prepossessions and 
his business involvements, impose limitations upon him 
and subject him to temptations which seriously stand in 
the way of his rendering the ideal service to society 
which is demanded by the true standards and canons of 
his profession. Modern business, in particular, with its 
huge and complicated processes, has tended to subor- 
dinate him, to make of him a servant, an instrument 
instead of a free adviser and a master of justice. My 
professional life has afforded me a rather close view of 
the training of the modern lawyer in schools, and I must 
say that it seems to me an intensely technical training. 
Even the greater and broader principles of which the 
elder lawyers used to discourse with a touch of broad 
philosophy, those principles which used to afford writers 
like Blackstone occasion for incidental disquisitions on 
the character and history of society, now wear in our 
teaching so technical an aspect, are seen through the 
medium of so many wire-drawn decisions, are covered 
with so thick a gloss of explanation and ingenious inter- 
pretation, that they do not wear an open and genial 
and human aspect, but seem to belong to some recondite 
and private science. 

Moreover, the prepossessions of the modern lawyer 
are all in favour of his close identification with his cli- 
ents. The lawyer deems himself in conscience bound to 
be contentious, to manceuvre for every advantage, to 
contribute to his clients’ benefit his skill in a difficult and 


314 COLLEGE AND STATE 


hazardous game. He seldom thinks of himself as the 
advocate of society. His very feeling that he is the 
advocate now of this, now of that, and again of an- 
other special individual interest separates him from 
broader conceptions. He moves in the atmosphere of 
private rather than public service. Moreover, he is 
absorbed now more than ever before into the great in- 
dustrial organism. His business becomes more and 
more complicated and specialized. His studies and his 
services are apt to become more and more confined to 
some special field of law. He grows more and more a 
mere expert in the legal side of a certain class of great 
industrial or financial undertakings. [he newspapers 
and the public in general speak of ‘“‘corporation law- 
yers,”’ and of course the most lucrative business of our 
time is derived from the need that the great business 
combinations we call corporations have at every turn 
of their affairs of an expert legal adviser. It is apt to 
happen with the most successful, and by that test the 
most eminent, lawyers of our American communities 
that by the time they reach middle life their thoughts 
have become fixed in very hard and definite moulds. 
Though they have thought honestly, they are apt to 
have thought narrowly; they have not made themselves 
men of wide sympathies or discernment. 

It is evident what must happen in such circumstances. 
The bench must be filled from the bar, and it is grow- 
ing increasingly difficult to supply the bench with dis- 
interested, unspoiled lawyers, capable of being the free 
instruments of society, the friends and guides of states- 
men, the interpreters of the common life of the people, 
the mediators of the great process by which justice is 
led from one enlightenment and liberalization to an- 
other. 

For the notable, I had almost said fundamental, cir- 
cumstance of our political life is that our courts are, 
under our constitutional system, the means of our politi- 
cal development. Every change in our law, every modi- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 4s 


fication of political practice, must sooner or later pass 
under their scrutiny. We can go only as fast as the legal 
habit of mind of our lawyers will permit. Our politics 
are bound up in the mental character and attitude and 
in the intellectual vigour and vision of our lawyers. 
Ours is so intensely and characteristically a legal polity 
that our politics depend upon our lawyers. They are 
the ultimate instruments of our life. 

There are two present and immediate tests of the 
serviceability of the legal profession to the Nation, 
which [ think will at once be recognized as tests which 
it is fair to apply. In the first place, there is the criti- 
cal matter of reform of legal procedure—the almost 
invariable theme, if J am not mistaken, of all speakers 
upon this question from the President of the United 
States down. America lags far behind other countries 
in the essential matter of putting the whole emphasis 
in our courts upon the substance of right and justice. 
If the bar associations of this country were to devote 
themselves, with the great knowledge and ability at 
their command, to the utter simplification of judical pro- 
cedure, to the abolition of technical difficulties and pit- 
falls, to the removal of every unnecessary form, to the 
absolute subordination of method to the object sought, 
they would do a great patriotic service, which, if they 
will not address themselves to it, must be undertaken 
by laymen and novices. ‘The actual miscarriages of 
justice, because of nothing more than a mere slip in a 
phrase or a mere error in an immaterial form, are noth- 
ing less than shocking. ‘Their number is incalculable, 
but much more incalculable than their number is the 
damage they do to the reputation of the profession 
and to the majesty and integrity of the law. Any one 
bar association which would show the way to radical 
reform in these matters would insure a universal recon- 
sideration of the matter from one end of the country 
to the other and would by that means redeem the repu- 
tation of a great profession and set American society 


316 COLLEGE AND STATE 


forward a whole generation in its struggle for an equi- 
table adjustment of its difficulties. 

The second and more fundamental immediate test of 
the profession is its attitude toward the regulation of 
modern business, particularly of the powers and action 
of modern corporations. It is absolutely necessary that 
society should command its instruments and not be domi- 
nated by them. The lawyer, not the layman, has the 
best access to the means by which the reforms of our 
economic life can be best and most fairly accomplished. 
Never before in our history did those who guide affairs 
more seriously need the assistance of those who can 
claim an expert familiarity with the legal processes by 
which reforms may be effectually accomplished. It is in 
this matter more than in any other that our profession 
may now be said to be on trial. It will gain or lose 
the confidence of the country as it proves equal to the 
test or unequal. 

As one looks about him at the infinite complexities 
of the modern problems of life, at the great tasks to 
be accomplished by law, at the issues of life and happi- 
ness and prosperity involved, one cannot but realize 
how much depends upon the part the lawyer is to play 
in the future politics of the country. If he will not 
assume the role of patriot and of statesman, if he will 
not lend all his learning to the service of the common 
life of the country, if he will not open his sympathies 
to common men and enlist his enthusiasm in those poli- 
cies which will bring regeneration to the business of 
the country, less expert hands than his must attempt 
the difficult and perilous business. It will be clumsily 
done. It will be done at the risk of reaction against 
the law itself. It will be done perhaps with brutal dis- 
regard of the niceties of justice, with clumsiness in- 
stead of with skill. 

The tendencies of the profession, therefore, its sym- 
pathies, its inclinations, its prepossessions, its training, 
its point of view, its motives, are part of the stuff and 


COLLEGE AND STATE abi, 


substance of the destiny of the country. It is these mat- 
ters rather than any others that bar associations should 
consider; for an association is greater than the indi- 
vidual lawyer. It should embody not the individual am- 
bition of the practitioner, but the point of view of 
society with regard to the profession. It should hold 
the corporate conscience and consciousness of the pro- 
fession. It is inspiring to think what might happen if 
but one great State bar association were to make up 
its mind and move toward these great objects with in- 
telligence, determination, and indomitable perseverance. 





THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWS. 


ADDRESS AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 6, 
IQII. FROM ‘‘THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,” 62D 
CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, APPENDIX, 


497-498. 
R. CHAIRMAN and gentlemen, the object of this 


meeting is not agitation, it is the statement of a 
plain case in such terms as may serve to arrest the atten- 
tion of the Nation with regard to a matter which is of no 
mere local importance, which does not merely affect the 
rights and essential privileges of our Jewish fellow-citt- 
zens as freemen and Americans, but which touches the 
dignity of our Government and the maintenance of those 
rights of manhood which that Government was set up 
to vindicate. 

The facts are these: For some 80 years a treaty has 
existed between this country and Russia in which it is 
explicitly covenanted and agreed that the inhabitants 
of the two nations shall have the liberty of entering any 
part of the territory of either that is open to foreign 
commerce; that they shall be at liberty to sojourn and 
reside in all parts whatsoever of the territory thus 
opened to commerce, in order to attend to their affairs; 
and that they shall enjoy the same security and protec- 
tion as inhabitants of the country in which they are 
sojourning, on condition, of course, that they submit 
to the laws and ordinances there prevailing, and par- 
ticularly to the regulations there in force concerning 
commerce. For some 40 years the obligations of this 
treaty have been disregarded by Russia in respect of our 
Jewish fellow-citizens. Our Government has protested, 
but has never gone beyond protest. After 40 years of 

318 


COLLEGE AND STATE 319 


more correspondence the Russian Government naturally 
does not expect the matter to be carried beyond protest 
to action, and so continues to act as it pleases in this 
matter, in the confidence that our Government does not 
seriously mean to include our Jewish fellow-citizens 
among those upon whose rights it will insist. 

It is not necessary to conjecture the reasons. The 
treaty thus disregarded by Russia is a treaty of com- 
merce and navigation. Its main object is trade, the sort 
of economic intercourse between the two nations that 
will promote the material interests of both. Important 
commercial and industrial relations have been estab- 
lished under it. Large American undertakings, we are 
informed, would be put in serious peril were those rela- 
tions broken off. We must concede something, even at 
the expense of a certain number of our fellow-citizens, 
in order not to risk a loss greater than the object which 
would seem to justify. 

I for one do not fear any loss. ‘The economic rela- 
tions of two great nations are not based upon sentiment ; 
they are based upon interest. It is safe to say that in 
this instance they are not based upon mutual respect, 
for Russia cannot respect us when she sees us for 40 
years together preferring our interests to our rights. 
Whatever our feeling may, be with regard to Russia, 
whatever our respect for her statesmen or our sympathy 
with the great future in store for her people, she would 
certainly be justified in acting upon the expectation that 
we would follow our calculations of expediency rather 
than our convictions of right and justice. Only once or 
twice, it would seem, has she ever thought our Govern- 
ment in earnest. Should she ever deem it in earnest, 
respect would take the place of covert indifference and 
the treaty would be lived up to. If it was ever advanta- 
geous to her, it is doubly and trebly advantageous now, 
and her advantage would be her guide, as has been ours, 
in the maintenance of a treaty of trade and navigation. 

If the Russian Government has felt through all these 


320 COLLEGE AND STATE 


years that it could ignore the protest of American min- 
isters and Secretaries of State, it has been because the 
American Government spoke for special interests or 
from some special point of view a.d not for the Am- 
erican people. It is the fact that the attention of the 
American people has now been drawn to this matter that 
is altering the whole aspect of it. 

We are a practical people. Like the rest of the world 
we establish our trade relations upon grounds of inter- 
est, not sentiment. The feeling of the American people 
toward the people of Russia has always been one of 
deep sympathy, and I believe of ready comprehension, 
and we have dealt with their Government in frankness 
and honour, wherever it appears that the interests of 
both nations could be served. We have not held off 
from cordial intercourse or withheld our respect because 
her political policy was so sharply contrasted with ours. 
Our desire is to be her friend and to make her relations 
with her closer and closer. 

But there lies a principle back of our life. America 
is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. 
Our greatness is built upon our freedom—is moral, not 
material. We have a great ardour for gain; but we 
have a deep passion for the rights of man. Principles 
lie back of our action. America would be inconceivable 
without them. ‘These principles are not incompatible 
with great material prosperity. On the contrary, unless 
we are deeply mistaken, they are indispensable to it. 
We are not willing to have prosperity, however, if our 
fellow-citizens must suffer contempt for it, or lose the 
rights that belong to every American in order that we 
may enjoy it. The price is too great. 

Here is a great body of our Jewish fellow-citizens, 
from whom have sprung men of genius in every walk 
of our varied life, men who have become part of the 
very stuff of America, who have conceived its ideals with 
singular clearness and led its enterprise with spirit and 
sagacity. They are playing a particularly conspicuous 


COLLEGE AND STATE 321 


part in building up the very prosperity of which our 
Government has so great a stake in its dealings with 
the Russian Government with regard to the rights of 
men. ‘They are not Jews in America; they are American 
citizens. In this great matter with which we deal to- 
night, we speak for them as for representatives and 
champions of principles which underlie the very struc- 
ture of our Government. They have suddenly become 
representatives of us all. By our action for them shall 
be tested our sincerity, our genuineness, the reality of 
principle among us. 

I am glad this question has been thus brought into 
the open. There is here a greater stake than any other 
upon which we could set our hearts. Here is the final 
test of our ability to square our politics with our prin- 
ciples. We may now enjoy the exhilaration of match- 
ing our professions with handsome performance. We 
are not here to express our sympathy with our Jewish 
fellow-citizens, but to make evident our sense of identity 
with them. ‘This is not their cause; it is America’s. It 
is the cause of all who love justice and do right. 

The means by which the wrongs we complain of may 
be set right are plain. There is no hostility in what 
we do toward the Russian Government. No man who 
takes counsel of principle will have in his thought any- 
thing but purposes of peace. ‘There need be for us in 
this great matter no touch of anger. But the conquests 
of peace are based upon mutual respect. ‘The plain fact 
of the matter is that for some 40 years we have ob- 
served the obligations of our treaty with Russia and 
she has not. That can go on no longer. So soon as 
Russia fully understands that it can go on no longer, 
that we must, with whatever regret, break off the inter- 
course between our people and our merchants, unless 
the agreements upon which it is based can be observed 
in letter and in spirit, the air will clear. There is every 
reason why our intercourse should be maintained and 
extended, but it cannot be upon such terms as at present. 


322 COLLEGE AND STATE 


If the explicit provisions of our present agreement can- 
not be maintained, we must reconsider the matter in 
the light of the altered circumstances and see upon 
what terms, if any, of mutual honour our intercourse 
may be reéstablished. We have advantages to offer 
her merchants, her mine owners, her manufacturers, 
which her Government will not despise. We are not 
suppliants. We come with gifts in our hands. Her 
statesmen see as clearly as ours. An intolerable situa- 
tion will be remedied just as soon as Russia is convinced 
that for us it is indeed intolerable. 


ON THE INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM AND 
RECALL. 


LETTER TO PROF. R. H. DABNEY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
VIRGINIA, PUBLISHED IN THE RICHMOND “TIMES 
DISPATCH,” DECEMBER 26, IQII. 


Y DEAR HEATH: We did not have a chance 

when I was with you to have our talk out about 
the initiative, referendum and recall; it may be worth 
while, therefore, in view of the importance of the sub- 
ject, for me to summarize somewhat more formally 
what I said to you in scraps. 


In the first place, with regard to my own state of 
mind, I surrender to the facts, as every candid man must. 
My whole prepossession—my whole reasoning—was 
against these things. But when I came into contact 
with candid, honest, public spirited men who could 
speak (with regard, for example, to Oregon) from per- 
sonal observation and experience, they floored me flat 
with their narration of what had actually happened. I 
found in the men who had advocated these things, who 
had put them into operation, and who had accomplished 
things by them, not critics or opponents of representa- 
tive government, but men who were eager to restore it 
where it had been lost, and who had taken—successfully 
taken—these means to recover for the people what they 
had unquestionably lost—control of their own affairs. 

In short, they were not trying to change our institu- 
tions. ‘The initiative, referendum and recall were to 
their eyes (as they are to mine) merely a means to an 
end—that end being the restoration of the control of 
public opinion. Where opinion already controls, where 


333 


324 COLLEGE AND STATE 


there is now actual, genuine representative government, 
as I believe there is in Virginia and in the South in gen- 
eral, they are not necessary. Each State must judge 
for itself. I do not see how it could be made a subject 
of national policy. ‘The people will, in my opinion, 
demand these measures only where they are manifestly 
necessary to take legislation and the control of admin- 
istrative action away from special, hopelessly entrenched 
interests. [hey are no general or universal panaceas! 

The recall of judges I am absolutely against, and al- 
ways have been. It is a remedy for a symptom, not for 
a disease—the disease being the control of the system 
by influences which general opinion has ceased to control. 

It interested me very much to find that even in Ore- 
gon literally no one thought of these new methods of 
action as a substitute for representative institutions, 
but only as a means of stimulation and control. ‘They 
are as devoted to the idea of our representative institu- 
tions as we are—and are bent upon realizing these ideas 
in practice. That is their conscious object. 

As for the recall, it is seldom used outside the munici- 
palities. I do not remember an instance of its use on 
a State officer. It is merely ‘“‘a gun behind the door.” 

Faithfully yours, 
Wooprow WILSON. 





THE TARIFF. 


ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CLUB, 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 3, 1912. FROM “THE CON- 
GRESSIONAL RECORD,” 62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, 
VOL. XLVIII, PP. 4748-4752. 


R. PRESIDENT and members of the National 

Democratic Club: It is with real pleasure that 
I find myself here again and realize as I look about me 
that these are familiar surroundings, for it has always 
been with unfailing cordiality that you have welcomed 
me, and I have always had the feeling that this was a 
place where it was worth while to say something, if one 
had anything to say. 

I want to begin by congratulating the club upon the 
programme of action which it has formed under the 
leadership of its intelligent officers. It is very delightful 
that a club should see at the outset of a campaign just 
the most effectual way of conducting that campaign. A 
campaign can be conducted only by the intelligent and 
earnest coOperation of men. There is a singular dif- 
ference, into the psychology of which I will not try to 
enter, between a campaign for tariff reform initiated 
by a professedly reform society and a campaign for 
tariff reform initiated by a professedly political associa- 
tion, for a political organization is known to exist in 
order to transact business. It does not exist merely for 
the purpose of discussing abstract ideas. You realize 
that when a club like this argues about tariff reform, 
that is the basis of a constructive programme, not 
merely the basis of exposition. You are not merely 
going to send lecturers around the country, but are going 
to debate the affairs of the Nation with the idea of 


325 


326 COLLEGE AND STATE 


getting a sufficient number of fellow-citizens to stand 
with you; for, in spite of what some gentlemen have 
stated to the contrary, I am absolutely in favour of or- 
ganization, but it depends upon what the organization is 
for. It depends upon how the organization is con- 
trolled. If the organization is privately owned, then I 
am not for it, because I don’t propose being owned 
myself; but if the organization is intended for the co- 
operation of men of like minds, in order to accomplish 
a common purpose and to advance the fortunes of a 
party which means to serve the Nation, then I am for it. 
You judge an organization by the way in which it is con- 
trolled and the objects to which it devotes itself. If it 
devotes itself to public objects, then every man must 
believe in it; if it does not, then honest men must with- 
draw from it—and so I congratulate you upon having 
the true spirit of organization—an organization which is 
not meant merely to associate yourselves together, but 
to associate yourselves together for a common purpose, 
a national purpose, a purpose which has for its object 
legislation to affect the conditions of the whole country. 
There is something that stirs the red blood in a man 
when a programme of that sort is adopted. 

I deem it an honour, therefore, to be associated with 
such men at the beginning of this campaign; and to have 
been asked to speak first is a particular honour, as if I 
could in some degree voice the purposes you have 
formed. If I do so, it will be simply because I have had 
a lifelong conviction that a very great degree of wrong 
has been done this country by the way in which the policy 
of protection has been applied to its affairs. I am not 
going into a general discussion of the theory of protec- 
tion, because, according to a very classical phrase, it 
is not a theory but a condition which confronts us; a 
condition of the country; a condition of affairs; an or- 
ganization of our economic system to our business sys- 
tem which has risen out of a special policy; a special 
set of circumstances. One of the peculiarities of the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 327 


tariff question is that it never seems to be settled; it is 
constantly recurrent, and there must be something very 
subtle to anybody who has studied history, in coming 
upon our old familiar friend in this question which has 
come up in every generation, to vex and perplex the 
American Nation again and again and again. You 
know ii is one of the complaints of our business men that 
it is never settled; that Congress will not let it alone; 
will never let business live on any fixed schedule of 
duties. Now, that is generally said to be true, because 
there is an uneasy set of persons called politicians who 
must have some means by which to stir up trouble and 
create unfavourable opinion. The first thing I want to 
call to your attention—a thing that has caused a great 
deal of discussion up to the present time—is this: It 
is not the politicians who have started this business. 
If you want to take business out of politics, business . 
ought voluntarily to get out of politics. The reason 
business is in politics now is that it has thrust itself in 
by going upon every occasion to Washington and in- 
sisting upon getting all that it can get from Congress. 
Politicians have not put the question of the tariff into . 
politics. Business men have put the question of the 
tariff into politics, and there have been circumstances 
and situations in our politics of which they were all 
aware even when they could not be proven. At least 
one great party was going to control the business inter- 
ests for fear the things they demanded of their politi- 
cians could not be got. Why has the Republican party . 
habitually been associated with the policy of high tar- 
ifis? Because the Republican party consisted of a 
number of gentlemen of a practical turn of mind who 
could prove to you the economic necessity of the tariff? 
Not at all, but because the bills of the Republican party 
were paid by business men who wanted a high tariff. 
Now, suppose we put the shoe on the other foot and 
invite the gentlemen who want business let alone to let 
politics alone. I for my part agree to withdraw from 


328 COLLEGE AND STATE 


troubling business if business will withdraw from troub- 
ling politics. I want to know who first steps in and 
troubles the waters of the pool? We don’t go in first, 
we are chased out of the pool; we are not allowed to 
get in first. And so I want to shift the burden of re- 
sponsibility at the very beginning. Is it the politicians 
who rush to the hearings of the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee when this question is going to be touched? Not 
at all. It is the gentlemen who want the tariff schedules 
arranged according to their interests who later state 
‘it is just like you politicians, you never let business 
alone.”’ I am not jesting; this is the true state of affairs, 
and I suggest a little reciprocity in “‘letting alone.” I 
suggest that somebody else take the medicine they try 
to administer to us. Are they ready to make the bar- 
gain? ‘They are not ready to make the bargain yet. 
They say, ‘“We don’t want the trouble of having to fix 
this up every time with the Ways and Means Committee. 
It worries us. We cannot calculate on to-morrow, be- 
cause we do not know who are going to be members 
of the Ways and Means Committee. We do not know 
when it will happen that some men may get on that com- 
mittee who know we are hampering them, and when 
that happens the game is going to get awkward.” 
Now, having shifted the responsibility, we are going 
to discuss the tariff question. We are to discuss it with 
the purpose of taking the tariff question out of politics. 
The only way to settle it is for the good of the country 
and not for the good of anybody in particular. Link 
it with special interests; let special interests have the 
chief interest in it, and you cannot settle it and take 
it out of politics. But once apply the rule of general 
interest and you have taken it out of politics. The 
minute you make it a tariff for revenue you have taken 
it out of politics. Then you have got something to 
stand on. I am not saying that you must do this thing 
offhand without considering all the vested interests that 
have been built up. That is a different proposition. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 329 


How you are going to do it is a different question. I 
am now discussing the idea you must hold in view when 
undertaking it. Well, then, let us realize that there is 
another reason we are taking up the tariff question 
again. ‘The tariff question is not now what it was a 
generation ago. It is not the same question. We are 
not agitating the old question. We are taking up a 
question old in one sense, but which must be dealt with 
under circumstances so radically different that it is now 
a different question. There was a great deal to be said 
for the policy of protection. I was going to say a gen- 
eration ago—but a generation and a half or two genera- 
tions ago the men in favour of it defended it with the 
greatest success. hey said: 

“Tt does not matter how high a tariff wall you build 
around the country, because here is a great continent, 
with almost inexhaustible resources, in which initiative 
will build up a great many enterprises of a great many 
kinds and a great many enterprises of the same kind 
and prices will be kept down by competition. One of 
the things the people do not realize is that we have ex- 
hibited one of the biggest experiments in business that 
has ever been set up. ‘There was once free trade within 
the whole area of this great country, free trade between 
innumerable competitors, and it was reasonable to ex- 
pect then, as the earlier advocates of protection did 
expect, as great men later constantly believed it was 
reasonable to expect, that prices would be kept down 
by internal competition. But I don’t have to argue 
with you. Prices are not kept down by internal competi- 
tion. I don’t have to point out to you gentlemen, notic- 
ing that the tariff wall was kept high and there was a 
snug covering behind it, that the beneficiaries consulted 
with one another and said, ‘‘Now, is it really necessary 
that we should cut one another’s throats?’ These gen- 
tlemen in Washington will build this wall as high as we 
want it built. Let’s get together. If the law is too 
watchful, let us have an understanding. We are men 


330 COLLEGE AND STATE 


of honour. We will keep our word of honour. We can 
form an arrangement by which we can determine, to a 
very considerable extent at any rate, the price of the raw 
material. We can, if we will, control the sources of the 
raw materials by means ad libitum. We can buy mines 
we do not intend to use for a generation and keep them 
in our side pockets, and so we can cut out any auto- 
matic regulation of this kind, instead of having a price 
schedule that is not our own and in open competition 
with the market.”’ 

Don’t you realize, in short, that the great combina- 
tions of modern business have made the old theory of 
protection absolutely antiquated? It is a preposterous 
theory. It is very beautiful as theory, but it doesn’t 
work. If it worked, I would have some respect for it, 
but it is moribund. It has forgot how to work. It is 
stiff in the joints. And so I say we are not arguing with 
those who were not revered when alive, but, having 
died, are very much revered. You know Dean Swift’s 
cynical translation of the old latin, ‘““When scoundrels 
die let all bemoan them.” ‘There is a great pity that 
encaseth the dead, but even the dead, if they were to 
come back to life, would not say that the theory of pro- 
tection is what it was once. It has lost all signs of 
vitality and youth. 

Then there is another circumstance. This country 
was once in a process of development which has pecul- 
iarly come to an end. When Mr. Redfield came in 
this evening, the first thing I said to him was that I 
would not be here if I hadn’t looked at his speeches. 
I primed myself on Mr. Redfield’s speeches. If he 
recognizes these points, he must forgive me. I really 
thought of some of them myself. I leave it to him 
to pick out which is his. But one of the things which 
has impressed me jibes in with what I have often thought 
about the sharp turning point that occurred in the year 
1898, after the Spanish war. This marks the end of an 
epoch for America. It marks the end of a domestic 


COLLEGE AND STATE 331 


epoch. After the Spanish war was over we joined the 
company of nations for the first time—at least for the 
first time since the very beginning, when we were very, 
very young—a child of the nations, having recently been 
the colony of a great trading nation. Without wealth 
we had many other things—a merchant marine, which 
we have carefully destroyed. Our flag, though a new 
flag, was on many seas. Our carrying trade was that 
of a nation young in its nationality, from whose coasts 
came men who could invade the seas, who could build 
any kind of craft, who knew the trading laws and trad- 
ing ports of the round globe. But we invited this gen- 
eration to forget all this and said, “We are going to 
shut ourselves in until we have formed this garden 
of our own.” We have developed that, and an interest- 
ing thing has happened, and if I am right in my facts the 
dealers in grain tell me that we are reaching the point 
when we won’t export grain, when we will need practi- 
cally all the grain for our own consumption, and some 
men may live to see that day unless we do something for 
our farms. Now, the consequence is we will have no 
surplus grain to supply the world with at the time we 
reach the stage where we have a great deal of surplus 
manufactured product, and the whole thing has turned 
up by reason of this extraordinary condition. 

Do you realize the extent of the audacity of the 
men who created the protective system? ‘They said, 
“We are going to see to it that nothing is done for the 
farmers’ —who at that time were producing the wealth 
of the Nation—‘‘and that everything is done for the 
men who have not yet produced any wealth at all,” and 
by this process of favouritism and subsidizing of one 
kind or another, direct or indirect, we have altered the: 
natural plans of life in this country. 

How does it happen that when immigrants come to 
this country from agricultural regions they do not go 
to the farms, but are caught in the meshes of our cities? 
For the same reason that the boys of the plow of our 


309 COLLEGE AND STATE 


country have been turned away from the farms and into 
the factories. All the life blood of the country is being 
drained from the farms into the factories. A great 
many of the morbid conditions of our society are due to 
this same excessive fostering of one side of national life 
at the expense of the other. ‘The alterations and eco- 
nomic balance of our life, the artificial stimulation, have 
destroyed that poise and balance which have been 
created by this protective policy. And now see what a 
point we have reached. We have stimulated it so much 
that we have not a large enough market or the means 
of disposing of the surplus product. This Nation calls 
itself a trading Nation, and has the knowledge of other 
manufacturing nations as to foreign markets, but when- 
ever you have to ship any goods you have to ship them 
under some other flag than the flag of the United States. 
How did it happen that we destroyed our own merchant 
marine and were associated with the policy by which 
we taxed the stuff out of which ships were built? We 
could not build them, and so, as if by deliberation, we 
deprived ourselves of the carrying trade of the world, 
which, if we had kept on our original plan, we might 
have had almost to the exclusion of other nations. 

It is a very rare treat, and possibly more delightful 
because it is so rare, in foreign water, to see the Stars 
and Stripes on a great ship. I never realized what 
the Stars and Stripes meant to me emotionally until 
one day in Plymouth Harbor I saw a ship sweep past 
me with the Stars and Stripes at her staff. It was an 
exceptionally rare sight, and I have never seen it since. 
I will remember that flag to my dying day. It was a 
rare specimen, an isolated testimonial to the spirit of 
a great national policy. And now we are getting very 
much interested in foreign markets, but the foreign 
markets are not particularly interested in us. We have 
not been very polite, we have not encouraged the inter- 
course with foreign markets that we might have encour- 
aged, and have obstructed the influence of foreign com- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 333 


petition. So these circumstances make the tariff ques- | 
tion a new question, our internal arrangements and new 
combinations of business on one side and on the other 
cur external necessities and the need to give scope to 
our energy which is now pent up and confined within 
our own borders; and yet the standpat Republican 
leaders remain unenlightened, uninformed, absolutely 
blind and stubborn. ‘They don’t know anything has 
happened. I wish I remembered some nonsense rhymes 
I once knew, the only nonsense I ever talked. I would 
apply them to these gentlemen who talk in the same 
phrases that were used 30, 40, and 50 years ago; who 
quote the eminent statesmen of those days, supposing 
they are talking about the same things then talked about, 
whereas they cannot find those things anywhere within 
their range. Now, one of the things they say is that 
they are the guardians of prosperity, and that nothing 
but the protective system can bring us prosperity, and 
when you press them to define prosperity they will de- 
fine it in terms of the bulk of business. One of their 
most delightful expositions of patriotic purpose is we 
must have new industries—if we have not got them we 
must acquire them at any cost. Prof. Taussig calls at- 
tention to the fact that in the debate in the Senate on the 
Aldrich bill Mr. Aldrich said, in defense of a duty of 
50 per cent on some article, that he was just as willing 
to pay 300, 400, or 500 per cent, provided he could 
thereby bring that industry to this country. Mr. Ald: 
rich’s idea of prosperity is to get as many industries as . 
possible established in this country at any price. Who 
pays the price, I would like to know? The consumer, 
of course; but, rather, the price is distributed in the re- 
adjustments of the whole economic system. It is impos- 
sible to find who pays it. If you could, you might make 
him mad. But the trouble is you cannot convince any- 
body in particular that he is paying it. But we, let 
us say in general terms, we are paying 50, 100, 200, or 
300 per cent in order that some gentlemen may set 


334 COLLEGE AND STATE 


up and make a profit in some business that ought not 
to be set up in America, because America does not offer 
the ideal conditions. And that is prosperity! I under- 
stand prosperity to be the abundant, intelligent, eco- 
nomic development of resources possessed by the coun- 
try itself. That is prosperity. It is using the plow, 
engines, mills, and water powers of this country just as 
you would use your own intellectual and physical re- 
sources. My prosperity consists in the best possible 
development of my powers. It does not consist in my 
loading my back with borrowed plumage that I have 
to pay something for and wear with an unaccustomed 
awkwardness. ‘That is not prosperity. And by the 
same token they say you are making business, there- 
fore you are making employment, and we must assume 
—we must still assume—that the American workingman 
is so ignorant, so unintelligent, as to suppose they are 
doing it for his sake. I’d like to know how he ever got 
into the game. I’d like to know how many gentlemen 
voluntarily share the profits of production with their 
workingmen. I know how the workingmen got their 
share—they got it by saying that they would not work 
until they did. ‘That’s the way they ever got it. They 
tell you, gentlemen, that you cut up the pie very well; 
but we are not going to supply the pie any more unless 
we have a piece of it. And I don’t blame them. It’s 
a grab game, anyhow. That’s exactly what the manu- 
facturers were doing—going down to Washington and 
saying, “If you don’t give us these things, who is going 
to pay the campaign expenses this year?’ They were 
on strike; they were combined on strike. Now, it was 
only treating them with their own medicine when their 
workingmen said, ‘‘We, too, can play at that game. We 
are on strike. How much are we going to get?” And 
the only reason they did not get it is they did not have 
the resources to stay out. ‘That’s the reason the heart 
of America really sympathizes with the combinations 


COLLEGE AND STATE 335 


of labour; that’s the only way they are going to prosper 
in what is a selfish game. 

Now, what is really the source of wages? Here 
I want to say explicitly that I sit at the feet of men like 
Mr. Redfield, who pay wages, who have handled the 
matter, and who know what they are talking about. 
Though the political economists say the same things, 
they don’t say them in the terms of specific instance the 
way these gentlemen say them. Wages come from the 
intelligence and energy of the workingmen, made effec- 
tive by the presence of natural resources and their man- 
agement by efficient managers. That’s where wages come 
from. For example, we talk about American labourers 
competing with the pauper labour of Europe. I heard 
that only last night, and I thought I was in a dream. 
It sounded medieval. Haven’t you known a machine 
that cost $500 to compete successfully with a machine 
that cost $50? ‘That did the same work? Haven't you 
known instances where it was profitable, economically 
profitable, to pay $500 rather than $50 for a machine, 
because the machine did so much more and better work 
that the $500 machine was cheaper than the $50 ma- 
chine? Isn’t that true? Do we protect expensive 
American machinery against European pauper machin- 
ery? What do Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans 
—not Germans, now, because they have put their un- 
matched studiousness onto this job—but what do Eng- 
lishmen in some continental countries do? They send for 
Americans as experts to tell them how they can make 
more out of their industrial plants, and what they are 
told in almost every instance is that they will have to 
put their pauper machinery on the junk heap. Isn't 
the analogy perfect? I don’t see any fault in it. If 
they imported American machines and Americal labour- 
ers they would also have to import the superintendents 
who know how to organize labour. The high cost of 
production is, almost in every instance, due not to high ~ 
wages but to the loss and waste in respect of bad man- 


336 COLLEGE AND STATE 


agement, poor machinery, or locating your whole plant 
in such a way that it is not in proximity to railroads and 
the other things necessary to the markets of the coun- 
try. If you put your factory in the right way, organize 
it right, put right machinery in, and then get the highest 
priced labour, you will find that you will make your 
profits, because in proportion as you improve the eco- 
nomic efficiency of your business your profits will be 
greater. You need more intelligent labourers, and you 
cannot get them except at a higher price. To my mind 
that’s rudimentary, but there are gentlemen who have 
never heard of it. There are manufacturers upon whom 
that idea has never dawned, and they may not believe 
it. I give their intelligence the benefit of the doubt. 
They will tell you that the American manufacturer has 
to be protected because he has to pay his labourers so 
much, and they will tell the labourers that protection is 
going to increase his wages; and now the labourer is 
finding out that they do not increase his wages and that 
there is something the matter with the working of the 
machinery. 

That leads me to the most beautiful theory of all— 
the theory of the cost of production. It took the Re- 
publican party a long time to be absolutely frank in dis- 
closing their ignorance of political economy. They were 
not perfectly frank until the last campaign, and then 
they said they wanted to proportion protection—pro- 
portion the rate of duty to the difference in the cost 
of production between American factories and the fac- 
tories with which they had come into competition 
abroad. I wonder if those gentlemen wrote that plank 
with a straight face? I don’t see how it was possible 
unless they employed some one who didn’t know any- 
thing about it. The difference between whom? You 
say between the foreign manufacturer and the domestic 
manufacturer. Which foreign manufacturer and which 
domestic manufacturer? ‘Where is your standard in 
the difference in cost of production? Suppose you 


COLLEGE AND STATE 337 


wanted to find differences that, as the Tariff Commission 
suggests, are average differences? An average is a 
variable thing. It might accidentally hit somebody, 
but I doubt whether it would hit many of us. If reduced 
it might not hit persons over 40 years of age, and if 
you are going to protect men under 40 what would the 
poor devils do over 40? ‘They are in more need of pro- 
tection than the others. The men under 40 years of age 
can take care of themselves, and if you are really going 
to do the fatherly and generous thing you propose in the 
theory of protection, you will take care of the least 
efficient. They are the ones who need looking after. 
If you reduce it to an average then you leave out the 
most helpless of the lot—the men who don’t know how 
to organize their business, who don’t know how to use 
their expensive labourers, who don’t know how to use or 
assemble their expensive machinery or utilize the mar- 
kets in an intelligent fashion. They are the men toward 
whom I feel a considerable degree of generosity, and if 
I was a protectionist I would go the limit and protect 
the least efficient, and frankly I do not see where you 
are going to succeed on any other basis. If you protect - 
the least efficient you are going to protect absolutely 
everybody, and you have reached the ultimate goal of 
that kind of government—a government that is taking 
care of everybody and everybody is assured a reasonable 
profit. Is not that a very reductio ad absurdum? Other-. 
wise, let us see. We are going to protect the most 
eficient who know how to do business and who use 
their resources when needed, to regulate it. You will 
protect only the trusts; that is to say, if their own 
account of the matter is to be accepted, because the 
trusts are defended by great combinations to bring about 
the high degree of efficiency caused by protection. I 
do not believe it. I believe there is a point in combina- 
tion beyond which the economy is lost and there is a 
very great loss and waste. It is like the law of dimin- 
ishing returns in agriculture. Up to a certain point an 


338 COLLEGE AND STATE 


addition of fertilizers, an addition of workingmen, and 
additional work on the farm will bring increasing re- 
turns, but you reach a limit where you have got too 
much fertilizer on it and too many men. ‘Then your 
returns begin to diminish, and there is the same law in 
industrial combinations. Then let us see: We are going 
to take those industrial combinations which have reached 
that highest point of efficiency and protect only them. 
They are the only fellows who can afford to sell any- 
where in the world. Why be benevolent to the self- 
supporting? It is like reserving your charity and con- 
ferring it only on millionaires. ‘These are the gentle- 
men who know how to run the world, and do run a con- 
siderable part of it, and they are going to be protected! 
Turn any way you please, gentlemen, it is a will-o’-the- 
wisp. 

Nobody deserves more sympathy than the honest 
gentlemen who construe the tariff question, because they 
are put upon this impossible quest to find the cost of 
production. ‘There is not the same cost of production 
between any two factories unless they absolutely match 
each other. ‘Then, there is not the same cost of pro- 
duction in the several parts of the same combination. 
Now you notice how the combinations meet that matter 
of the cost of production. Let us see: ‘Where there 
are 20 mills or factories and a combination is effected 
they put those various properties into the combination 
at, let us say, a reasonable figure; that is not generally 
so, but we will admit it. They then put them in at the 
real figure of their value. I won’t go on to the next 
step, because that is painful. ‘They then double the 
whole business with a lot of manipulation, which is 
a delicate matter, but suppose they went no further than 
that and put them in at what they are really worth? 
Then they shut up 5 or 6 of them because, compared 
with the rest, they are operated at a loss, and put out 
stocks and bonds on the face of those shut up, as well as 
on the basis of the other 14, and we go on paying inter- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 339 


est on what it cost to shut those 6 up. They have elim- 
inated those 5 or 6, but so far as the consumer is con- 
cerned they go on as ghostly mills that work while you 
sleep and you keep paying the price. 

Now, the Nation could just as well afford to do that 
as what it is doing now. I would rather have the credit . 
of American efficiency, shut up the inefficient factories, 
and continue to pay out of the Public Treasury a reason- 
able profit. I say I would rather do that than go on 
letting the inefficient work and go on assuring them a 
reasonable profit. The newly discovered ground is 
quicksand, and I advise the Republican party to move 
off before it disappears. ‘They will certainly be engulfed 
if they stand on that theory long enough. This cost 
of production has no stability anywhere in it. It is a 
constant flux and, as Mr. Redfield has somewhere said, 
a disgrace to any concern if it is not a constantly changed 
quantity. "The cost of production ought to be constantly 
reduced in a business that is making profit. It ought 
not to stand in the same place for 2 of 12 months. 

Now, what is the conclusion of the whole matter? 
There are three conclusions. In the first place, we have . 
been doing this thing at a tremendous economic disturb- 
ance, artificially changing our whole plans of society, 
and I fear we will go on doing it at an enormous waste. 
Has this country really husbanded and used its resources 
properly? Hasn't it used them in a way disgracefully 
wasteful? Haven’t we stopped working a mine the 
minute it began to be difficult to work? NHlaven’t we 
stopped using them the minute our native virgin proper- 
ties seemed difficult to manipulate? Haven't we left 
scrap heaps everywhere? MHaven’t we left off taking 
care of our forests, the splendid trees, ripping and tear- 
ing everywhere we have gone? MHasn’t our progress 
been marked by scenes of devastation? Nothing looked 
to, nothing saved, nothing utilized to the utmost, though 
we did not have to utilize it to the utmost. The Govern- 
ment has made everybody pay this bill of wastefulness, 


340 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and we have even gone to the extent of paying bills of 
the next generations. Don’t you know the combinations 
bought up mines they do not intend to use while we are 
still alive, and we are paying the interest on what it 
cost them to buy those mines which the next generation 
is going to use? Isn’t there an enormous economic 
waste when every generation must not alone pay its own 
bills, but the next generation’s bills? “The whole thing 
is an extravagant mirage of philanthropy, and this eco- 
nomic waste has bred in us something that is contrary 
to our trade genius; a sort of indulgence of looseness, 
a method of imperfection. 

In the second place, we have got ourselves in the 
habit of legislating for the few instead of for the many 
on an interesting theory that I am very fond of explain- 
ing: 

The theory of the Republican party has been if a 
few prosper all will be given a share of their prosper- 
ity; if you make the great captains of industry rich, 
they will make the country rich. It isn’t so; but we have 
been foolish enough to believe it sometimes. We have 
been foolish enough to settle national elections on the 
belief that it was so. We believed that factories would 
be shut up and some thousands of poor devils sent out 
of employment and that symptoms of distress would be 
established, when there was no genuine necessity for 
distress at all. Oh, the greed of these men, the indul- 
gence, the eternal indulgence of selfishness! They will 
say you have paid the bills for us and for our fathers, 
and you have got to pay them again or we will know 
the reason why. I don’t feel any bitterness about this, 
gentlemen; all that is buried; but it is the fact that we 
should have been so put upon; that we should have been 
so innocent as to believe the incredible—which we could 
demonstrate as untrue if we only took the pains and 
looked into the facts—what the consumers knew to be 
untrue at the very time they were patiently casting Re- 
publican ballots and made believe they thought it wise; 


COLLEGE AND STATE 341 


this putting the advantages of legislation in the hands 
of the few at the constant sacrifice of the many; and 
the dream of America has been reversed to a Govern- 
ment for the privileged few and not for the many. 

There is a quotation which we have been applauding 
nearly every Fourth of July, as I remember, but which 
we have not believed since I can remember. We have 
applied that quotation from the Virginia bill of rights 
and from one of Washington’s addresses, in which he 
lays it down as a fundamental conception of American 
affairs that when the people deem their Government is . 
not serving their interests they have a right to resume it 
into their own hands. MHaven’t you heard that before, 
and haven’t you applied it? Well, do you believe it? 
America has not acted upon that in my lifetime. That 
belief is merely intended to be engraved in golden letters 
upon some tablet of our memories and enshrined as a 
fragrant recollection. 

Now, there is another thing that this has done—and 
I am ashamed to see how long I have spoken—it has 
reversed all our natural conceptions of government. 
The worst feature of protection is the demoralization . 
of our political ideas. We have based government upon 
patronage and privilege instead of upon justice and 
equality. ‘[hat’s the cancer that eats at the hearts of — 
all. 

Now, what are we going to do? Are we going to 
turn revolutionists? Are we going to act as free . 
traders? I wish I might hope that our grandchildren 
could indulge in free trade, but I am afraid even they 
cannot, because they have to pay the bills of the Federal 
Government. We have a Federal system of govern- 
ment, and it is wise, it is good housekeeping, it is good 
management to leave direct taxes, for the most part, 
to the State governments, because they have current bills 
to pay. It is likely that for an indefinite period we shall 
have to pay our national bills by duties collected at the 


342 COLLEGE AND STATE 


ports. Though I am not for drastic changes, yet I wish 
I saw some ultimate escape from it. At present I do 
not. Therefore, what we have to ask ourselves is not 
the principle upon which we are to act, for that is plain. 
- We are to act upon the fundamental principle of the 
Democratic party—not free trade, but tariff for rev- 
enue—and we have got to approach that by such 
avenues, by such stages, and at such a pace as will be 
consistent with the stability and safety of the business 
of the country. Fortunately there are some things that 
are plain. The very wide-awake gentlemen who con- 
stitute the Democratic majority in the lower House of 
Congress saw the opening in the line and carried the 
ball through. They saw the schedules upon which it was 
safe to act, and unanimously agreed that it was safe 
and wise to act now, which they did; and now they may 
have to act again to the same effect, because all excuses, 
so far as I can see, for any cooperation are swept away. 
Many excuses were offered. The cover of the tariff 
bill was an excellent cover while it lasted, but the Tariff 
Board has uncovered the defense, and now there are 
certain schedules upon which our minds are fixed, with a 
sufficient illumination of the facts and conditions to 
enable us to act upon them. We can act upon them, and, 
feeling our way prudently here and there, not like doc- 
trinaires, but like practical and prudent men, we can by 
prudent stages bring this tariff down to our children on 
a proper tariff basis. ‘That’s a plain programme. It 
is a practical man’s programme. It is not a theoreti- 
cal programme; it is not a programme based upon a 
desire to get even with anyone; it is not a programme 
based upon the patience that special privilege has ex- 
hausted; it is merely an open-minded, prudent, states- 
manlike course of action. 

I congratulate you, gentlemen, upon undertaking 
this campaign of education, not of agitation; of demon- 
stration, not of abuse; a campaign where the facts will 


COLLEGE AND STATE 343 


be more eloquent than figures of speech, and where back 
of the whole thing will lie that natural impulse of public 


service upon which alone a permanent national policy 
can be founded. 








JACKSON DAY DINNER ADDRESS 


DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON, JANUARY 8, I912. FROM 
““THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D 
SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, PP. 4745-4747. 


R. TOASTMASTER and fellow Democrats, we 
are met to celebrate an achievement. It is an inter- 
esting circumstance that principles have no anniversaries. 
Only the men who embody principles are celebrated upon 
occasions like this and only the events to which their con- 
certed action gave rise excite our enthusiasm. You 
know that the principles of the Democratic party are 
professed by practically the whole population of the 
United States. ‘The test of a Democrat is whether he 
lives up to those principles or not. I have no doubt 
there are some people in the United States who covertly 
question the doctrines of Democracy, but nobody chal- 
lenges them openly. It goes without saying, therefore, 
that we have not come together merely to state the ab- 
stract principles of our party. We have come together 
to take counsel as to how it is possible, by courageous 
and concerted action, to translate them into policy 
and law. The Democratic party has had a long period 
of disappointment and defeat and I think that we can 
point out the reason. We do not live in simple times. 
We live in very conflicting times indeed. No man can 
be certain that he can say how to weave the threads of 
Democratic principle throughout all the complicated 
garment of our civilization, and the reason that the 
Democratic party has had this period of successive dis- 
turbance is that it has been divided into groups just 
as it was as to the method of fulfilling the principles. 
We have differed as to measures; it has taken us six- 
344 


COLLEGE AND STATE 345 


teen years and more to come to any comprehension of 
our community of thought in regard to what we ought to 
do. What I want to say is that one of the most striking 
things in recent years is that with all the rise and fall 
of particular ideas, with all the ebb and flow of particu- 
lar proposals, there has been one interesting fixed point 
in the history of the Democratic party, and that fixed 
point has been the character and the devotion and the 
preachings of William Jennings Bryan. 

I, for my part, never want to forget this: That 
while we have differed with Mr. Bryan upon this occa- 
sion and upon that in regard to the specific things to be 
done, he has gone serenely on pointing out to a more 
and more convinced people what it was that was the 
matter. He has had the steadfast vision all along of 
what it was that was the matter and he has, not any | 
more than Andrew Jackson did, not based his career 
upon calculation, but has based it upon principle. 

Now, what has been the matter? The matter has 
been that the Government of this country was privately 
controlled and that the business of this country was 
privately controlled; that we did not have genuine rep- 
resentative government and that the people of this coun- 
try did not have the control of their own affairs. 

What do we stand for here to-night and what shall 
we stand for as long as we live? We stand for setting 
the Government of this country free and the business 
of this country free. The facts have been disputed by 
a good many sections of the Democratic party for the 
last half generation, but they were not clearly recog- 
nized. 

I make the assertion that the Government was pri- 
vately controlled. I mean to put it specifically that the 
Government of this country was managed by politicians 
who gained the contributions which they used by solicita- 
tion from particular groups of business interests, on 
the understanding, explicit or implied, that the first care 
of the Government was to be for those particular 


346 COLLEGE AND STATE 


interests. I am not questioning either the integrity 
or patriotism of the men concerned. I have no 
right to. In most instances they were of that old be- 
lief, cropping up again and again in America, that the 
people of this country are not capable of perceiving 
their own interest and of managing their own affairs; 
that they have not the contact with large affairs; that 
they have not the variety of experience which qualifies 
them to take charge of their own affairs. It is the old 
Hamiltonian doctrine that those who have the biggest 
asset in the Government should be the trustees for the 
rest of us; that the men who conduct the biggest busi- 
ness transactions are the only men who should stand 
upon an elevation sufficient to see the whole range of 
our affairs, and that if we will but follow their leader- 
ship we may share in their prosperity. That is the Re- 
publican doctrine, and I am perfectly willing, as a tribute 
to their honesty though not to their intelligence, to 
admit that they really believe it; that they really believe 
it is unsafe to trust such delicate matters as the com- 
plicated business of this country to the general judgment 
of the country. ‘They believe only a very small coterie 
of gentlemen are to be trusted with the conduct of large 
affairs. There was a long period in New Jersey, for 
example, in which no commissioner of insurance was ever 
chosen without first consulting or getting the consent of 
the head of the largest insurance company in the State, 
and I am willing to admit, at any rate for the sake of 
argument, that it was supposed he, better than anyone 
else, knew who was qualified for the job. He did know 
who was qualified for the job and he had the proper 
point of view in demonstrating that it was mainly for 
the benefit of the big interests. 

Now, the other thing that has been privately con- 
trolled in this country is the business of the country. 
I do not mean that each man’s particular business ought 
not to be privately controlled, but I mean that the great 
business transactions of this country are privately con- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 347 


trolled by gentlemen whom I can name and whom I will 
name, if it is desired; men of great dignity of character; 
men, as I believe, of great purity of purpose, but men 
who have concentrated, in their own hands, transactions 
which they are not willing to have the rest of the country 
interfere with. 

Now, the real difficulty in the United States, gentle- 
men, it seems to me, is not the existence of great indi- 
vidual combinations—that is dangerous enough in all 
countries—but the real danger is the combination of 
the combinations, the real danger is that the same 
groups of men control chains of banks, systems of rail- 
ways, whole manufacturing enterprises, great mining 
projects, great enterprises for the developing of the 
natural water power of this country, and that threaded 
together in the personnel of a series of boards of di- 
rectors is a community of interest more formidable than 
any conceivable combination in the United States. 

It has been said that you cannot ‘‘unscramble eggs,” 
and I am perfectly willing to admit it, but I can see in 
all cases before they are scrambled that they are not 
put in the same basket and entrusted to the same groups 
of persons. 

What we have got to do—and it is a colossal task— 
a task not to be undertaken with a light head or with- 
out judgment—but what we have got to do is to disen- 
tangle this colossal community of interest. No matter 
how we may purpose dealing with a single combination 
in restraint of trade, you will agree with me in this that 
I think no combination is big enough for the United 
States to be afraid of; and when all the combinations 
are combined and this combination is not disclosed by 
any process of incorporation or law, but is merely the 
identity of personnel, then there is something for the 
law to pull apart, and gently, but firmly and persistently 
dissect. 

You know that the chemist distinguishes between a 
chemical combination and an amalgam. A chemical com- 


348 COLLEGE AND STATE 


bination has done something which I cannot scientifically 
describe, but its molecules have become intimate with 
one another and practically united, whereas an amalgam 
has a mere physical union created by pressure from 
without. Now, you can destroy that mere physical 
contact without hurting the individual elements, and 
you can break up this community of interest without 
hurting any one of the single interests combined; 
not that I am particularly delicate of some of the 
interests combined—I am not under bonds to be 
unusually polite, but I am interested in the business 
of this country, and believe its integrity depends upon 
this dissection. I do not believe any one group 
of men has vision enough or genius enough to de- 
termine what the development of opportunity and the 
accomplishments by achievement shall be in this coun- 
try. You cannot establish competition by law, but 
you can take away the obstacles by law that stand in the 
way of competition, and while we may despair of setting 
up competition among individual persons there is good 
ground for setting up competition between these great 
combinations, and after we have got them competing 
with one another they will come to their senses in so 
many respects that we can afterwards hold conference 
with them without losing our self-respect. 

Now, that is the job. ‘That is the thing that exists, 
and the thing that has to be changed, not in any spirit 
of revolution and not with the thought—for it would 
be a deeply unjust thought—that the business men of 
this country have put up any job on the Government 
of this country. Take even that colossal job known as 
the Payne-Aldrich tariff. The business men of this 
country did not put up that job. Some of the business 
men of this country did, but by no means all of them. 
Think what that means. Do you mean to say that the 
commercial men of this country are interested in main- 
taining the integrity of that bill? Some, and only some, 
of the manufacturers of this country have put up that 


COLLEGE AND STATE 349 


job on us, and many of them have been the unwilling 
beneficiaries of a system which they knew did not min- 
ister to the prosperity of their undertakings. 

I am not going to make a tariff speech. It is so easy 
to knock holes in the present tariff there is no sport 
in it. I am a humane man. I would not jump on a 
thing like that, but I do want to point out to you that 
the ownership of Government—it is a harsh word to 
use, but I am not using it harshly. I am using it for 
shorthand—the ownership of the Government of the 
United States, by special groups of interests, centres in 
the tariff, and that is where the difference comes in. I 
have heard men say that politicians interfered too much 
with business. I want to say that business men interfere 
too much with politics. Do the statesmen of this coun- 
try go to the Ways and Means Committee and the 
Finance Committee and beg for these favours? You 
know that they do not. Some Congressmen go to these 
committees and plead that some gentlemen back in their 
constituencies are pressing them hard on bills, and as 
public men, plead for individual interests, and their 
entrance into politics has been so by those who intended 
to control the schedules of the tariff. 

I once heard a very distinguished Member of Con- 
gress give this illustration: He was talking about a 
great campaign fund that had been collected. It was 
the paltry sum of $400,000. It was a great sum for 
that somewhat primitive day, and it was pointed out 
at the time—at any rate specified—that most of this 
money had been contributed by manufacturers who were 
the chief beneficiaries of the tariff, and those gentlemen 
pointed out that they certainly would want to get their 
money back. I may not be saying the thing properly, 
but it is simply this: 

Down where I live we get most of our water from 
pumps, and a pump, as you know, may go dry overnight, 
and a prudent housekeeper will pump up a bucket of 
water at night before she goes to bed and leave it stand- 


350 COLLEGE AND STATE 


ing. Then, in the morning if the plunger will not suck 
she pours in that water, and that expands the plunger 
and it begins sending the pump water out; and the first 
water that comes out is the same water she poured in. 
By that I mean, gentlemen, that this $400,000 was or- 
dered poured in to make the old pump suck, and you 
know that that homely illustration is fair. That is what 
is done and that is the way the control of Government 
comes in. 

Well, what are we going to do? I have a practical 
mind, and am not interested particularly in the too long- 
winded discussion of the principles upon which we are 
going to act. Neither am I wise enough to propose a 
comprehensive programme. I think the rule of Donny- 
brook Fair is good enough for me: ‘“‘Hit the heads you 
see.” Make sure before that your shillalahs are made 
of good Irish hickory. By that I mean this: Lop off 
the special favors whenever you are certain you have 
identified them; lop them off. That is a pretty good 
rule. You do not need to be all-wise to do that. Paint 
some of those favours so conspicuously that all can see 
them. If you do not know which they are, ask the first 
man you meet on the street and he will tell you. He 
will give you a list that will keep you busy all winter. 
And I might add this, if you please, not to go at them 
haphazard, but to go steadily through the things that 
have become obvious excrescences and cut them off. 
That is a very definite programme, and, then, I might 
add, go into an absolutely thorough investigation of the 
way it may best be conducted, find out just where, in dis- 
secting, the scalpel can be introduced, and divorce these 
artificial unions, because I know that you will not be 
cutting living tissue. 

I hear a great deal of talk about conservatism and 
radicalism. Now, what makes a man shiver when he 
hears a statement of the facts concerning it? He feels 
it is cold-blooded and indiscreet to state the facts, and 
yet he really is inclined, I must say, to think there is 


COLLEGE AND STATE 351 


something in it. He says to himself, this man must be 
a radical, because if he sees the thing that way, what 
in God’s name is he going to do, because, if he is going 
to go to work to thoroughly change those facts there 
is no telling where he will stop. Now, it is just there 
that he ought to stop being radical. If the prudent sur- 
geon wants to save the patient he has got absolutely to 
know the naked anatomy of the man. He has got to 
know what is under his skin and in his intestines; he has 
got to be absolutely indecent in his scrutiny. And then 
he has got to say to himself: ‘I know where the seat 
of life is; I know where my knife should penetrate; I 
dare not go too far for fear it should touch the fountain 
of vitality. In order to save this beautiful thing I must 
cut deep, but I must cut carefully; I must cut out the 
things that are decayed and rotten, the things that mani- 
fest disease, and I must leave every honest, wholesome 
tissue absolutely untouched.” A capital operation may 
be radical, but it is also conservative. There cannot be 
life without the cutting out of the dead and decayed 
tissue. 

And, as to business, after a few committees like the 
Stanley committee have gone on a little longer we will 
know a good many particulars, and we will be versed in 
this high-finance business ourselves. These things are 
coming out with astonishing candour. We now know 
how to regulate prices. We know how to run combina- 
tions by circulars that convey intimations and instruc- 
tions. We see the little artificial threads that bind these 
things together, threads which do not themselves contain 
the life, but which themselves do control the vessels in 
which the life blood runs. And so stage by stage we shall . 
learn what the practical business of a Democrat is. It 
is to go to the root of the matter, seek out the proc- 
esses of cure and restoration and rehabilitation. What 
a travesty it is upon the name of Democracy to see any 
Democrat who wishes to destroy the very thing that 
his principles should make him in love with, namely, 


R52 COLLEGE AND STATE 


the life of the people themselves. A very thoughtful 
preacher pointed out the other day that one of the first 
quotations in our Lord’s Prayer is, “Give us this day 
our daily bread,’ which would seem, perhaps, to indi- 
cate that our Lord knew what every statesman must 
know, that the spiritual life of the Nation cannot exist 
unless it has physical life; that you cannot be an altruist 
and patriot on an empty stomach. Nothing shows the 
utter incapacity of a man to be a Democrat so much as 
his incapacity to understand what we are after. He does 
not know that the very seeds of life are in the principles 
and confidence and lives and virtues of the people of 
this country, and so when we strike at the trusts, or, 
rather, I will not say strike at the trusts, because we 
are not slashing about us—when we move against the 
trusts, when we undertake the strategy which is going 
to be necessary to overcome and destroy monopoly, we 
are rescuing the business of this country, we are not in- 
juring it, and when we separate the interests from each 
-other and disconnect these communities of connection 
we have in mind a greater community of interest, a 
vaster community of interest, the community of interest 
that binds the virtues of all men together, that man- 
kind which is broad and catholic enough to take under 
the sweep of its comprehension all sorts and conditions 
of men, and that vision which sees that no society is re- 
newed from the top and every society is renewed from 
the bottom. Limit opportunity, restrict the field of 
originative achievement, and you have cut out the heart 
and root of the prosperity of the country itself. 

The only thing that can ever make a free country 
is to keep a free and hopeful heart under every jacket 
in it, and then there will be an irrepressible vitality, then 
there will be an irrepressible ideal which will enable us 
to be Democrats of the sort that when we die we shall 
look back and say: ‘“‘Yes; from time to time we differed 
with each other as to what ought to be done, but, after 
all, we followed the same vision, after all we worked 


COLLEGE AND STATE 353 


slowly, stumbling through dark and doubtful passages 
onward to a common purpose and a common ideal.”’ 
Let us apologize to each other that we ever suspected 
or antagonized one another; let us join hands once more 
all around the great circle of community of counsel and 
of interest which will show us at the last to have been 
indeed the friends of our country and the friends of 
mankind. 








EFFICIENCY 


ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF THE REAL ES- 
TATE MEN OF BOSTON AT THE CITY CLUB, JANUARY 
27, 1912. INTRODUCED BY RICHARD OLNEY, SEC- 
RETARY OF STATE DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF 
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND. FROM “THE CONGRES- 
SIONAL RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. 
XLVIII, APPENDIX, 495-497. 


Vi eae your excellency, your honour, 
gentlemen of the real estate exchange: I am not 
going to talk about politics. I am simply going to dis- 
cuss public questions. And there is a difference, a very 
great difference, between discussing politics and talking 
about public questions. Indeed, it is very difficult to 
talk politics in America now, because you cannot be 
certain where any man you are talking to belongs. 

There is what a football man would call a very 
broken field, and it is almost impossible to classify men 
any longer in America, at any rate, after you get them 
out of the field of their own businesses. 

You cannot classify a man about other things until 
you have talked to him for a long time; and it is in- 
credible that a thoughtful man in this State should really 
be a standpatter, because the penalty of being such is 
that the whole of your generation and your civilization 
will run away from you if you don’t move with it. 

The theme of my thought as I came here to-night is 
that we are not at the beginning of a new age, not at its 
immediate beginning, but near its beginning, and that 
everything, whether we wish it to do so or not, wears a 
new aspect for us. Almost every question which it is 
imperatively necessary we should consider and discuss 

354 


COLLEGE AND STATE 355 


is, if not a new question, now developed in such a new 
aspect for America that we must treat it as if it were 
a new question. 

For example, it seems to me that the most pressing . 
thing in America is the question of conservation, not 
merely the conservation of so much as remains of our 
unwasted resources—I do not mean the mere renewal of 
our forests; I do not mean mere preservation and a 
more economical use of our water power—I mean the 
preservation of our energies and of the genius of our ~ 
people. 

Questions of sanitation to me are questions of con- 
servation; questions of morals are questions of con- 
servation. You cannot conserve the energy of America 
unless you give to its exercise the proper moral environ- 
ment. You cannot get the best work out of your work- 
men unless you make them by honest operations to be- 
lieve that you regard them, not as your tools, but as 
your partners; and the whole conservation of America 
is a question of the supremacy of America, of her right 
thinking, and of her righteous action. We owe it to 
future generations that we should not waste or destroy 
our resources, and we owe it still more to future gen- 
erations that we should not lower the vitality of our 
workingwomen, check the vitality of our children, de- 
moralize the processes of our life at any point. And 
yet how long is it since America troubled herself with 
questions of conservation? How long is it since we 
felt in the heyday of thoughtless youth, with so much 
youth at our hands, that we did not have to be careful 
in the economy of it; and how constantly did we re- 
joice that we had put ourselves in a position to be waste- 
ful. 

Almost every time public questions are discussed in 
this day somebody asks the question: ‘‘What is the 
leading question of the approaching political cam- 
paign?’ Now, I don’t know what is the leading ques- 
tion, but I know what is the central question, or at least 


356 COLLEGE AND STATE 


I think I do, because I find that every road leads to that 
question, and that is the question of the tariff. The 
question of conservation leads straight to that same 
radical origin, to this road of the tariff, because by pro- 
tecting ourselves from foreign competition—from the 
skill and energy and resourcefulness of other nations— 
we have felt ourselves at liberty to be wasteful in our 
own processes. I believe that it is one of the most 
serious consequences of the protective tariff that it has 
made it unnecessary that we should be careful and saving 
in our own industrial enterprises. I am going to return 
to that presently, but for the time being let me point out 
simply this: That behind the wall of our tariff we can 
afford to pay for business that we are not doing. | 

What I mean is this: Take almost any modern com- 
bination. Suppose that 20 factories are drawn together 
in a single organization. These 20 factories are not all of 
them similarly equipped for efficiency and economy of 
action, and it constantly happens that after the necessary 
money is put into the capitalization for the union of 
those factories under a single organization a number of 
them are put out of operation rather than brought up to 
the highest point of efficiency and thereafter are carried 
as dead enterprises. Now, you could not afford to do 
that if you had to make every part most efficient in ac- 
tion. You could not afford to carry cold furnaces; you 
could not afford to carry silent looms; you could not 
afford to put up shutters and make people to whom you 
sell your goods pay for what you paid to put up the 
shutters. 

We can afford to carry dead business in this country 
because we have not exposed ourselves to universal com- 
petition with live business. And so, finding it possible 
to do things of that sort, we have gone further—we are 
paying for things we have not yet used. 

There are combinations in this country, for example, 
in which men have bought mines which they have never 
opened and which they are carrying, and probably will 


COLLEGE AND STATE 357 


carry, until the next generation, while we pay the piper. 
They don’t want anybody else to use the mines, and we 
are paying for what the next generation will use. 

Have you realized the loads, the dead weights, that 
American business is carrying? You may not have 
analyzed it in this way, but whether you have ana- 
lyzed it in this way or not, the price we are paying 
for manufactured goods in this country tells the tale of 
what we have been trying to do. And when we swing 
our thought back to the question of conservation we see 
nothing less than this: that now we have got to the 
point where we have got to do something very different, 
because the question of trade is a new question in this 
country. 

I have no doubt that the explanations which Gen. 
Bancroft offers for the falling off in the export business 
of Boston is one of the explanations for that decrease 
nationally. I have no doubt that the differential rate 
in favour of Baltimore has a great deal to do with it, 
but there is something else that has to do with it. 

Have you looked at the general course of the export 
trade in this country? Don’t you know that the export 
of grain is steadily going down from natural causes? 
We used to produce so much more grain than we needed 
ourselves that we could afford to export enough to feed 
the greater part of the rest of the world. 

But with the increase in our population at a greater 
rate than the productivity of our soil—or, rather, the 
use of our soil after the productive fashion—the exports 
of grain are falling because we need more of it our- 
selves, and during the same period when this has become 
marked our exports of manufactured articles have been 
increasing almost in spite of us by leaps and bounds. 

While we have been producing less and less grain in 
proportion to our power of consumption, we have been 
producing more and more manufactured goods in 
proportion to our power of consumption, until now we 


358 COLLEGE AND STATE 


have a surplus of manufactured goods of which we 
must get rid or else do an unprofitable business. 

At this point we discover that we have done some- 
thing very singular, considering we are Americans. In 
the first place, by processes which you know just as 
well as I do, we destroyed our commercial marine. 

I am not going to try to distribute the blame or to 
consider whether the measures which produced this 
effect were well considered at the outset or not. We 
can afford to be indifferent as to whether they were or 
not, because we are considering the present or future. 

The point is now that you are more likely to see 
the flag of the little Kingdom of Greece on the seas 
than the flag of the United States. History shows, 
and this particular part of the country will bear witness 
to the statement, that whereas we were once noted as 
the common carriers of the Atlantic, whereas we once 
furnished the seamen and ships for a very considerable 
proportion of the commerce of the ocean, we have, for 
one reason or another, lost that carrying trade, and 
you also know, if you are merchants, that the nation 
which carries the world’s goods can generally see to it 
that its merchants get the markets. 

When we need markets, therefore, now that we are 
needing them, we have not the hands by which to reach 
out and take them. Our merchant seamen are gone. 
Our ships have disappeared from the sea, our registry 
lists are short and insignificant, and by the same token, 
while we had surrounded ourselves with this wall of the 
tariff and were rejoicing in the great area of free trade 
which we could enjoy in America under our own vine 
and fig tree, we were becoming ignorant of the markets 
of the world. 

Where are the great East Indian merchants who 
used to have offices in Boston? Where are those men 
who understood the tastes and the needs of the ends 
of the earth? Where are the men who knew exactly 


COLLEGE AND STATE 359 


what to send to India in order to exchange for what 
India could send to us to satisfy our tastes and needs? 

The great trading nations of the world are not those 
who understand only domestic needs and tastes. They 
are those who understand the foreign needs and tastes. 
I heard it quoted from a great cotton manufacturer to- 
day that if we only had 200,000,000 instead of 100,- 
000,000 people in this country we would have enough 
people to take up the full capacity of the cotton fac- 
tories of the United States. 

Well, lacking the additional hundred million, what 
are we going to do with our surplus goods? We have 
got to do something we do not know how to do now to 
make cotton goods of the kind and pattern that are 
salable in all quarters of the world, and then to place 
them there. 

But the tariff has made this extremely difficult, and 
at the same time we are preparing transformations for 
ourselves. What is the completion of that great ditch 
now being dug through the Isthmus going to mean to 
some of the Atlantic seaports? When you take the 
differential off which will even things between you and 
Baltimore, how are you going to see your way out— 
how are you going to prevent the great blood of the 
economic life of the Nation from running down the 
Mississippi Valley? Where are you going to be when 
the arteries run north and south instead of east and 
west ? 

And after you have got your dock frontage, how 
are you going to bring the ships of the world here if 
the currents of trade are shifting, shifting, shifting in 
spite of you? 

Stand pat when the world is changing? Sit still when 
everything is altering, whether you want it to alter or 
not? Tell your politicians to let you alone to the en- 
joyment of your false security when you are not se- 
cured at all? When the world itself is being trans- 


360 COLLEGE AND STATE 


formed, will you refuse yourselves to alter your think- 
ing? 

There is no such lack of intelligence in this great city 
of Boston as to dream of the possibility of an incon- 
ceivable thing like that. You have got, in order to 
relieve the plethora, in order to use the energy of the 
capital of America, to break the chrysalis that we have 
been in. We have bound ourselves hand and foot in 
a smug domestic helplessness by this jacket of a tariff 
we have wound around us. [Applause.] We are not 
about to change the tariff because men in this country 
have changed their theories about the tariff. We are 
going to change it because the conditions of America 
are going to burst through it and are now bursting 
through it. 

You cannot fight a Spanish war and join the family 
of nations in international affairs and still keep your 
gaze directed inward upon yourself, because along with 
the singular change that came upon us, that notably 
altered or affected the very character of our Govern- 
ment, the Nation itself began to be a different thing. 
Have you ever thought of the history of our Govern- 
ment, of the history of the Executive part of it? Do 
you not know that down to the period when we began 
to shut our doors tight against foreign commercial inter- 
course the Executive was the most important part of 
the Government of the United States, and then we went 
through a long period when, except for the civil war 
when there was concentrated energy to be found, the 
Executive counted for almost nothing and the Congress 
for almost everything, because every question was a 
neighbourhood question? It was ourown. We had not 
any national spokesman such as the Executive is pre- 
pared to serve us. And then came the Spanish war, and 
since then do you think it is a question that the Ex- 
ecutive has again become a conspicuous part of this 
Government? So soon as a nation must act you must 
have a body through which it can act. So soon as it 


COLLEGE AND STATE 361 


becomes a single will you have to have a lodgment for 
the guiding intelligence, a single will in every nation 
that is important in international relations—a strong 
guiding Executive—not because it deliberately chooses 
to have it, but because it has no choice—it must have 
it. And so while we have waited and drifted in altru- . 
istic fashion into a war for the sake of the Cubans, we 
altered the centre of gravity of our Government. Will 
we never learn this fact: that you do not make govern- . 
ments by theories? You accommodate theories to the 
circumstances. ‘Theories are generalizations from the 
facts. The facts do not spring out of theories. If they 
did we would have a very symmetrically ordered series 
of facts, but the facts break in and ignore the theories 
—contemptuously smash the theories—and as our life 
is, as our thought is, so will our Government be. 

Very well; our thoughts are concentrated upon our- 
selves. Now, we are changing our point of view and 
looking abroad upon the face of the earth, seeking to 
allow ourselves an outline into the general field of com- 
petition, which includes the whole round globe. In the 
meantime what have we done? Do you really think 
that the tariff has produced efficiency? Do you believe 
that combinations, most of which have been made possi- 
ble by the tariff, have had as their chief effect efficiency 
and economy? Every tyro knows that, up to a cer- 
tain point, combination produces economy. But it does 
not necessarily produce efficiency. That depends upon 
who runs the combination and on the amount of brains 
invested, not on the amount of capital pooled; and after 
you have got your combination, what do you do with 
it? I donot mean what you say you do with it in public 
discussions. What do you actually do with it? You 
have only to ask to look into the testimony before the 
Stanley committee; you have only to look into the testi- 
mony in the trial of the meat packers; you have only to 
look in the public records to find what is done with 
some combinations. There are private understandings 


362 COLLEGE AND STATE 


with regard to prices. Everybody knows that, and that 
the penalty of not observing those prices and keeping 
to them is to be put out of the combination, and it looks 
—J will not make this as assertion, but I will venture 
to say—as if the object of some combinations was the 
prices, not the efficiency, not economy, but the avoid- 
ing of the very things that make economy and efficiency 
absolutely imperative. I do not have to be efficient over 
and above the point that the men I am in competition 
with makes it necessary that I should be efficient. If I 
know enough to know more than the fellow that I am 
competing with I do not have to increase my knowledge. 
If I understand the game well enough to checkmate him 
I do not have to understand it any better, and if I can 
enter into an understanding with him I do not have to 
understand it at all. [Laughter.] So that my convic- 
tion is—and I[ think that the admission of every candid 
mind will be—that in recent decades we have been de- 
creasing our efficiency. 

There is only one thing upon which efficiency depends, 
and that is the whole thing. You cannot get efficiency 
out of your workmen if you overdrive them, any more 
than you can get it out of your machines if you overdrive 
them. Did you ever notice how much more tender and 
considerate of their machines some American manufac- 
turers are than they are of the human beings they em- 
ploy? Do not you know that every thoughtful manu- 
facturer studies what his machinery will bear, and he 
will dismiss an employee who puts more on that ma- 
chine than it can bear or than he ought to put on it? 
Very well; does he dismiss the same superintendent who 
puts more on the human muscle and spirit than it can 
bear? Not often. When you find a manufacturer who 
is considerate of the strain on his men and who makes 
them feel that he is taking as much care of them as of 
his machinery you find the most efficient establishment 
in the trade. [Applause. ] 

Would it not be a good idea to draw your cost sheets 


COLLEGE AND STATE 363 


after a new fashion? Would it not be a good idea to 
have a cost sheet to show the strain put upon the men 
in every respect—not merely the physical strain, but a 
sheet which would show the strain put on them by lack 
of ventilation in the factory, by the lack of opportuni- 
ties of amusement, by the absence of the feeling on the 
part of the workmen that they are really regarded as 
essential partners in a mutual undertaking which makes 
every man just as eager to make the product good as his 
employer could possibly be? It would be a moral bal- 
ance sheet of the whole industry of the Nation. Do not 
you see how I am traveling in a circle? It is a question 
of conservation. Conservation is a question of efh- 
ciency. Efficiency depends upon those finer economies 
which assemble all the elements of energy, and economy 
is simply another way of spelling the word honesty, 
thriftiness, getting out of every ton of coal every unit 
of energy that there is in it without waste, throwing 
nothing away, making profit out of everything, but par- 
ticularly out of your relations with your fellow-men. 
We have this question to answer, therefore, gentle- 
men, and this is the central question of all politics and 
it is a perfectly non-partisan question: What do you | 
want, the economical adjustment, the moral adjustment, 
the physical adjustment which will produce these re- 
sults, or do you want a fetish, called protection, behind 
which there will be waste, plus security? Do you really 
want to admit that you cannot make the American 
Nation more efficient than any other nation in the world? 
The only reason that America 1s efficient is that Amer- 
ican brains are capable of entering into any competition 
that you can conceive of. ‘The central thing is that so 
long as we keep American life relatively what we in- 
tended it to be, we have only to import a workman 
who earns 30 cents a day on the other side of the water 
and find him in an employ earning $2 a day on this side 
of the water. A man cannot change the dexterity of 
his fingers or his physical make-up in a month, but he 


364 COLLEGE AND STATE 


can change his point of view. He can catch the infec- 
tion of the factory in which he works. He can recog- 
nize under the intelligent supervision of the superin- 
tendent that through his participation and because he 
has become a constituent part of the great throbbing 
American machine that we call civilization he can be an 
infinitely better workman than he is anywhere else. 

When you want to cut down your working force, 
which of your workmen do you dismiss first? Those 
that get the smallest wages. You don’t dismiss the 
high-priced men first. If you did you would dismiss 
the president and secretaries and superintendents, and 
you cannot get on without those who earn the larger 
salaries. You don’t dismiss from the top, but from the 
bottom, which is your admission that the most economi- 
cal labour you have is your highest-priced labour. That 
is what you cannot dispense with. It is high priced 
not because of the tariff. Oh, I wish I had time to 
explode that ancient myth. No thoughtful economist 
in the world knows so little as not to be able to ex- 
plode it. Only business men who will not take the pains 
to become economists believe it, and some of them do 
not believe it. | 

A friend of mine who travels all over the world and 
sells a certain kind of American machine tells me he 
can sell $350 machines in competition with an $80 
machine that does the same work because the $350 ma- 
chine is more economical, it produces more in a given 
time and better goods in a given time, yields more to 
the intelligence of those who use it in a given time than 
the $80 machine, and the $350 machine is cheaper, pro- 
duces a smaller labour cost than the $80 machine. 

And the man who earns $10 a day, if he really earns 
it, is cheaper to you than the $1 a day man. And you 
can afford nothing so ill as to turn away from the idea, 
from the conception, that American labour is supreme 
because it is intelligent and not because it gets higher 
wages. That is a false reasoning; you are putting the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 365 


cart before the horse. American labour gets higher 
wages because it is more valuable. Now, any intelli- 
gent labour can compete with any pauper labour, and 
the intellectual absurdity of “‘protecting” intelligent men — 
from unintelligent is too patent to need explanation. 
When I hear the reports that tell of protecting the 
American labourers that I know of against the pauper 
labour of Europe I can only smile that my fellow-voters 
are so gullible. 

Now, gentlemen, you cannot afford to be narrow in 
the presence of change, and you cannot afford to think 
that your legislators and your executives are bringing 
change upon you. Neither can you afford to think that 
you can take no guiding part in the change. We are 
facing a new age, with new objects, new objects of Amer- 
ican trade and manufacture, because the minute you be- 
gin to make models for foreign sale you have to change 
the machinery, the whole point of view. We are facing 
new objects with new standards, the standards of cos- 
mopolitan intelligence instead of provincial intelligence, 
and with a new conception of what it means to produce 
wealth and produce prosperity. The prosperity of 
America has often been checked, but it has seldom been 
aided by legislation. I wonder how any man can keep 
the red corpuscles in his blood from getting up and 
shouting when he realizes the age that we are entering 
upon. 

I was saying to-day to some of the fellows out at 
Harvard that I wished I had been born 20 years later, 
so that I could have had 20 years more of this exhilarat- 
ing century upon which we have entered, a century which 
greets the challenge to originative effort. This is no 
century for any man who looks over his shoulder; it is 
no century for any man who has no stomach for the 
facts that change even while he tries to digest them; 
a century in which America is to prove once more 
whether she has any right to claim leadership in the 
world of originative politics and originative economic 


366 COLLEGE AND. STATE 


effort. This is a century just as worth living in as was 
the eighteenth century, better worth living in than was 
the nineteenth century. 

When I hear men say that you are attacking Amer- 
ican civilization by proposing, not rapid, but slow, 
steady—if necessary, organic—changes to meet the 
facts, | wonder what they think of when they look at 
the flag of the United States. ‘The flag of the United 
States stands for the biggest kick on record. 

The flag of the United States, in my imagination, 
consists of alternate strips of white parchment upon 
which are written the aspirations of men, and streams 
of blood poured out to verify their hope, and in the cor- 
ner of that flag sparkle the stars of those States that 
have one after another swung into the firmament to show 
that there is a God in heaven, that men will not abandon 
hope so long as they have confidence in the God of 
righteousness, the God of Justice, the God of liberty. 
[Loud applause. ] 


RICHMOND ADDRESS 


ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
OF VIRGINIA AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF RICHMOND 
ON FEBRUARY I, I912. FROM “THE CONGRES- 
SIONAL RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. 
XLVIII, PP. 3919-3922. 


\ ae Excellency, Mr. Speaker, Your Honour, Gen- 
tlemen of the General Assembly of Virginia, and 
of the Council of the City of Richmond, Ladies and 
Gentlemen: 

I face this great audience to-night with a mixture 
of emotions. I am glad to feel like a boy who has 
come home to report in some degree to his neighbours, 
not about myself, but about the things that I have seen, 
or tried to see clearly, happening in the great com- 
munities of which we constitute a part. 

I am not going to hold the distinguished gentlemen 
who have introduced me responsible for the terms in 
which they have presented me to you. I am ready to 
believe, if anything should happen to me that is unto- 
ward, that they have uttered not a critical judgment, 
but have spoken according to the dictates of their hearts. 
They have been welcoming me home—they have not 
been telling you exactly what I am. 

And yet, the voice of a friend melts the heart, and 
I, for my part, feel it very difficult here to-night to 
make an address from which the sentimental emotions 
that rise in me are left out. I have on my lapel a 
badge which, if I followed the dictates of good taste, 
perhaps I should not wear, for it bears my own name; 
but it was pinned on my coat by one of the delegation 

367 


368 COLLEGE AND STATE 


from Staunton—my native place—(applause)—and I 
know that you will indulge me in the sentiment which 
has led me to leave it there, not as a token of egotism, 
but as a token of my appreciation of the welcome which 
has been extended me. 

You have been told to-night that the eyes of the 
nation were centred upon me. I hope not. That is 
very awkward. (Laughter.) I do not like to believe 
that the eyes of the nation are centred upon me. I 
do like to believe that the thoughts of the nation are 
centred upon the great questions which I, among many 
others, have tried honestly and fearlessly to expound— 
(applause )—because we are just now seeking to show 
our devotion, not to persons, but to a cause—a funda- 
mental cause, a cause to which the whole history of 
America has been a commendatory example. 

I could not stand before this audience of my one- 
time neighbours—for there are a great many men be- 
hind me at any rate, if not in front of me, who have 
known me ever since I was a boy—and try to pose my- 
self as an important figure. They would see through 
it. (Laughter.) I remember the story of an innocent 
old woman who went into the side-show of a circus 
and saw, or supposed that she saw, a man read a news- 
paper through a two-inch board. She got up in great 
excitement and said, ‘‘Here, let me out of here; this is 
no place for me to be with these thin things on.” 
(Laughter and applause.) I fear that the disguise of 
greatness would be too transparent; and yet I do feel 
that every man should, who believes in the great ideals 
of this country and in their translation into action, stand 
up in every company and proclaim the faith that is in 
him, so that by common counsel and by common action 
we may achieve something for this great nation. 

I have heard men complain of the changes of the 
times. I have heard men counsel that we stand still 
and do nothing. How futile the counsel is! Do you 
remember the quaint story of the Scottish highlander 


COLLEGE AND STATE 369 


who went into the market of Edinburgh, followed by 
his dog? He went to a fishmonger’s stall and the dog 
incautiously dropped his tail into a basket of lobsters, 
and one of the lobsters nipped his tail. Whereupon the 
dog went yelping down the street, with the lobster 
bouncing after. ‘The fishmonger said, ‘Hoot, mon: 
whussle to your dog!’’ “Hoot!” said the Scotchman, 
‘‘whussle to your lobster.”” (Laughter and applause. ) 

Now if you think some of your leaders are going too 
fast a pace, don’t whistle to them. Whistle to the spirit 
of the age. Whistle to the questions that have whipped 
their consciences and dominated their understandings. 
They cannot stop if they are going to keep up with the 
great transmutations of affairs. For, gentlemen, whether 
we have realized it or not, we have entered a new age, ° 
and I have comforted myself with the thought as I 
journeyed towards Virginia again, that Virginia had 
never been daunted by a new age; with however debonair 
and young and confident a genius, Virginia led a great 
nation and helped to create a great nation in a new 
age. (Applause.) 

I have heard men say that it was un-American to criti- 
cise the institutions we are living under. I wonder if 
they remember the significance of the American flag— 
the first insurgent flag that was flung to the breeze— 
the flag that represented the most colossal “‘kick”’ that 
was ever taken in political transactions; a flag that I 
cannot look at without imagining that it consists of 
alternate strips of parchment upon which are written 
the fundamental rights of man, alternating with the 
.streams of blood by which those rights had been vindi- 
cated and validated. (Applause.) In the blue sky of 
the corner there are swung star after star of common: 
wealths of free men who were setting up their own 
homes upon the principles of those vindicated rights. 

Do you suppose that I will believe, or that any one 
knowing the history of America or the history of Vir- 
ginia will believe, that it is inconsistent with being an 


370 COLLEGE AND STATE 


American and a Virginian to propose that you construct 
liberty for each successive age, and that if necessary you 
reconstruct liberty for each successive age? If I had 
happened to get that breath out of my lungs in my 
absence from the Old Dominion, it would enter them 
again as | came back to her. (Applause.) I have not 
lost it elsewhere. The handsome contagion has in- 
fected the whole of the great nation. Do not suppose 
that the people of New Jersey have not seen visions, 
and dreamed dreams. Some gentlemen in some initial 
quarters wanted to suppress the dreams. (Laughter 
and applause.) It made the sleep of some men, in some 
quarters, uneasy that they should be haunted by those 
visions, but they never went out of the thought or the 
sleepless eyes of those great multitudes of men for 
whom happiness depends upon freedom, for whom 
self-respect depends upon freedom and principle, and 
in New Jersey as everywhere else they have drunk of 
those fountains which first began to flow in Virginia, 
those fountains by which we constantly renew our youth, 
and devote ourselves generation after generation to the 
preservation of the institutions of America. 

I want, if possible, to explain to this great body of 
thinking persons the age in which we live, as it seems 
to me to present itself. Why, ladies and gentlemen, 
in our age every question is new. Every question that 
faces America is Just as new now as were the questions 
that faced America in 1776. I do not mean that we are 
upon the verge of a revolution. I do not mean that 
passion is stirring which will upset the ancient founda- 
tions of our political order; but I do mean that life has 
changed under our very eye, so that what we do will 
have to be adjusted to almost absolutely new condi- 
tions, and I want that you will bear with me to point 
out just what I mean. 

You know that one of the great questions that faces 
this great country is the question of conservation. Now 
* just what do you mean by conservation? Do you mean 


COLLEGE AND STATE 371 


the big thing, or do you mean the little thing? The 
little thing, though big in itself, but little by compar- 
ison, is the renewal of our forests, the protection of our 
great water powers against further depletion, the safe- 
guarding of our mineral resources against waste and 
extravagance, the keeping in store as long as may be of 
those things which cannot be renewed, and may even 
within a generation, some of them, come to the point 
of exhaustion. 

That is the question of conservation as most men 
discuss it; but is that all? It seems to me that the 
fundamental question of conservation in America is the | 
conservation of the energy, the elasticity, the hope of 
the American people. (Applause.) I deal a great 
deal with friends, for I have had such friends all my 
life, who are engaged in manufacturing in this country, 
and almost every one of them will admit that while he 
studies his machinery, and will dismiss a man who over- 
taxes the machinery so that its bearings get heated, 
so that the stress of work is too much for it, so that it 
is racked and over-done, not a man of them dismisses 
a superintendent because he puts too great strain upon 
the souls and hearts of his employees. (Applause.) 
We rack and exhaust and reject the man machine, and 
we honestly, economically, thoughtfully preserve the 
steel machine; for we can get more men—we have only 
to beckon to them; the streets are full of them waiting 
for employment; but we cannot, without cost, get a 
new machine. 

Now that kind of conservation is a great deal more 
than the question of overstraining the factories. If I 
knew my business and were a manufacturer, what would 
Ido? I would create such conditions of sanitation, such 
conditions of life and comfort and health as would 
keep my employees in the best physical condition, and I 
would establish such a relationship with them as would 
make them believe that I was a fellow human being, 


372 COLLEGE AND STATE 


with a heart under my jacket, and that they were not 
my tools, but my partners. 

Then you would see the gleam in the eye, then you 
would see that human energy spring into expression 
which is the only energy which differentiates America 
from the rest of the world. (Applause.) Men are 
used everywhere, men are driven under all climes and 
flags, but we have boasted in America that every man 
was a free unit of whom we had to be as careful as we 
would be of ourselves. America’s economic supremacy 
depends upon the moral character and the resilient 
hopefulness of our workmen. So I say, when you are 
studying questions of conservation, realize what you 
have been wasting, the forests, water, minerals and the 
hearts and bodies of men. That is the new question of 
conservation. I say new, because only in our day has 
the crowding gotten so close and hot that there is no 
free outlet for men. Don’t you remember that until 
the year 1890, every ten years when we took the census, 
we were able to draw a frontier in this country? It 
is true that in what is called the golden age, 1849, when 
gold was discovered in California, we sent outposts 
to the Pacific and settled the further slope of the Rocky 
Mountains. But between us and that slope, until 1890, 
there intervened an unoccupied space where the census 
map makers could draw a frontier. But when we 
reached the year 1890 there was no frontier discover- 
able in America. 

What did that mean? That meant that men who 
found conditions intolerable in crowded America no 
longer had a place free where they could take up land 
of their own and start a new hope. That is what that 
meant, and as America turns upon herself her seething 
millions and the cauldron grows hotter and hotter, is it 
not the great duty of America to see that her men 
remain free and happy under the conditions that have 
now sprung up? It is true that we needed a frontier 
so much that after the Spanish war we annexed a new 


COLLEGE AND STATE 373 


frontier some seven thousand miles off in the Pacific. 
But that is a long cry, and it takes the energy of a very 
young man to seek that outlet in the somewhat depress- 
ing climate of the Philippines. 

So we now realize that Americans are not free to 
release themselves. We have got to live together and 
be happy in the family. I remember an old judge who 
was absolutely opposed to divorce, because he said that 
a man will be restless as long as he knows he can get 
loose—(laughter)—but that so soon as it is firmly 
settled in his mind that he has got to make the best of 
it, he finds a sudden current of peace and contentment. 
Now there is no divorce for us in our American life. 
We have got to put up with one another, and we have 
got to see to it that we so regulate and assuage one 
another that we will not be intolerable to each other. 
We have got to get a modus vivendi in America for 
happiness, and that is our new problem. And I call you 
to witness it is a new problem. America never had to 
finish anything before; she has been at liberty to do the 
thing with a broad hand, quickly, improvise something 
and go on to the next thing; leave all sorts of waste 
behind her, push on, blaze trails through the forest, 
beat paths across the prairie. But now we have even to 
top and pave our streets, we are just finding that out. 
I suppose it was good for the digestion to bump over 
the old cobble stones, but it was not good for trade, 
and we have got to pull up the cobble stones and make 
real sidewalks that won’t jolt the life out of us. Let 
these somewhat whimsical comparisons serve to illus- 
trate what I am talking about. 

Now there is another new thing in America, and that 
is trade. Will you laugh at me and say, ““Why, America — 
has been supreme in trade ever since she was created.” 
Has she? We have traded with one another, but we 
have traded with nobody else in proportions worth 
mentioning. Yes, we have in grain, in the great food- 
stuffs, but do you know what is happening? Our food- 


374 COLLEGE AND STATE 


stuff exports, our grain exports are falling, falling, 
not because we produce less, but because we need more 
ourselves. We are getting nearer and nearer to the 
point where we will ourselves consume all that our farms 
produce. Then we will not have anything with which 
to pay our balance, will we? Yes, we will, because 
while our exports of grain have been falling, our exports 
of manufactured articles have been increasing by leaps 
and bounds. 

But under what circumstances? Long ago, after we 
had forgotten the excellent things that the first genera- 
tion of statesmen had done for us in America, we 
deliberately throttled the merchant marine of the United 
States, and now it is so completely throttled that you 
are more likely to see the flag of the little kingdom of 
Greece upon the seas than the flag of the United States. 
And you know that the Nation that wants foreign com- 
merce must have the arms of commerce. If she has the 
ships, her sailors will see to it that her merchants have 
the markets. J am not arguing this to you, I am telling 
you, for the facts, if we look but a little ways for them, 
will absolutely demonstrate this circumstance, that we 
have more to fear in the competition of England, Ger- 
many and France, because of the multitude of English, 
French and German carriers upon the sea than we 
have to fear from the ingenuity of the English manu- 
facturers or the enterprise of the German merchants. 

Anybody who has dealt with railroads knows what I 
am talking about. Railroads in America have made 
and unmade cities and communities, have they not? 
They would do it now if they were not watched by the 
Interstate Commerce Commission. We are obliging 
them to work without discrimination now, but they at 
one time discriminated as they pleased, and they deter- 
mined where cities were to grow and where cities were 
to decay. 

Very well. ‘The same thing is happening upon the 
high seas. The foreign carrier can tell you where you 


COLLEGE AND STATE 375 


can go and where you cannot go. He can discriminate 
against you and in favour of his own merchants and 
manufacturers, and he will, because he does. 

And while all this is going on, and we lack the 
means, we are fairly bursting our own jacket. We are 
making more manufactured goods than we can consume 
ourselves, and every manufacturer is waking up to the 
fact that if we do not let anybody climb over our tariff 
wall to get in, he has got to climb to get out; that we 
have deliberately domesticated ourselves; that we have 
deliberately cut ourselves off from the currents of trade; 
that we have deliberately divorced ourselves from world 
commerce; and now, if we are not going to stifle eco- 
nomically, we have got to find our way out into the 
great international exchanges of the world. ‘There is 
a new question. 

I was speaking in Boston the other evening at a real 
estate exchange, and I asked those gentlemen what is 
going to keep real estate values in Boston steady? I 
asked them if they realized what was likely to happen 
after the year 1915. You know that in that year it is 
likely that the great ditch in the Isthmus will be open for 
commerce. We are not opening it for America, by the 
way, because we haven’t any ships to send through it; 
we are opening it for England and Germany. (Ap- 
plause.) We are pouring out American millions in 
order that German exporters, English exporters and 
French exporters may profit by our enterprise; and when 
that is done, of course something is going to happen to 
America. I asked those gentlemen in Boston if, after 
that was done, the arteries of trade in this country 
would continue to run east and west. Some great 
arteries are going to open north and south. ‘The great 
valley of the Mississippi is to be the home of teeming 
industries and of a ceaseless commerce. And then I 
wonder sometimes if it will not be colder still in the 
northeastern section of this country where Boston is 
situated. Those east winds, of which they are fond, 


376 COLLEGE AND STATE 


will not bring them increasing commerce, perhaps, but 
they will hear the throb of that great heart in the centre 
of the continent, which is shifting the centre of gravity, 
which is throwing into different arteries the course of 
the blood of the great commercial world. Does that 
strike you as something happening in America that you 
cannot sit still and neglect? Hadn't you better ‘“whussle 
to the lobster’? Don’t whistle to the dog, but whistle 
to the lobster, if you think it will do any good, but I 
have never enticed a lobster by whistling. 

There is another new question in America, and that is 
the question of business. Business is in a situation in 
America that it was never in before; it is in a situation 
to which we have not adjusted our laws. Our laws are 
still meant for business done by individuals; they have 
not been satisfactorily adjusted to business done by great 
combinations, and we have got to adjust them. I do not 
say we may or may not, I say we have got to, there is 
no choice. If your laws do not fit your facts, the facts 
are not injured, the law is damaged; so much the worse 
for the law, because the law, unless I have studied it 
amiss, is the expression of the facts in legal regulation. 
Laws have never altered the facts; laws have always 
necessarily expressed the facts, adjusted interests as they 
have arisen, and changed to one another. 

When before, in the history of America, were the 
Congress of the United States and the Legislature of 
every State called upon in every session to intervene in 
the regulation of business? Never before our own age. 

Now why is all this happening? Why has business 
taken on a new aspect in America? Why does it wear a 
face with which we are only by degrees becoming famil- 
iar? For a very interesting reason. An ever diminish- 
ing circle of men exercise a control in America with 
which only the Government itself can compete. 

I am not one of those, ladies and gentlemen, who 
speak of the interests in big letters as if they were 
enemies of mankind. I know the natural history of 


COLLEGE AND STATE 377 


the interests, and they grew just as naturally as an 
oak grows; some of them grew just as naturally as a 
weed grows. (Laughter.) 

I am not here to enter an indictment against business. 
No man indicts natural history. No man undertakes 
to say that the things that have happened by operation 
of irresistible forces are immoral things, though some 
men may have made deeply immoral use of them. I am 
not here to suggest that the automobile be destroyed 
because some fools take joy rides in it. I want to catch 
the fools. I am not here, in other words, to suggest 
that the things that have happened to us must be re- 
versed, and the scroll of time rolled back on itself. 
To attempt that would be futile and ridiculous. I am 
here to point out as clearly as I can what I believe to 
be the facts, and what most of you know to be the facts, 
because some of you have been considering these things 
longer than I have, and I have no doubt that you have 
seen things clearer in twenty years than I have seen 
them in twenty months. [I am not talking about things 
distant; I am talking about things that I have seen with 
my eyes and handled with my hands. 

Now these things, if you will allow me to express 
them briefly—and to express them briefly means to 
express them imperfectly—these things amount to this, 
that a comparatively small number of men control the 
raw material of this country; that a comparatively small 
number of men control the water powers that can be 
made useful for the economical production of the power 
to drive our machinery almost entirely; that that same 
small number of men, by agreements handed around 
among themselves, control prices, and that that same 
group of men control the larger credits of the country. 

Do you know that nobody can undertake the larger 
kind of undertakings without their approval and con- 
sent? ‘There are very few men who can afford to stand 
up and tell you that, because there are very few men 
in my happy condition. I haven’t any note in bank. 


378 COLLEGE AND STATE 


(Applause.) I live within my income and I cannot be 
punished for what I say. (Applause.) But I know 
perfectly well, and I have been told by men who dared 
not speak above their breaths with regard to it for fear 
they would be punished, that I could not start a great 
enterprise in this country that needed a million or more 
of money to start it unless I made an agreement and 
combination with certain gentlemen who control the 
great credits of the country. 

Now I am not hot in my mind against these gentle- 
men. ‘They used the opportunities which we accorded 
them, and they have got us. Some of them are just as 
patriotic, just as public spirited, just as honest as any 
man in America. But when you have got the market in 
your hand, does honesty oblige you to turn the palm up- 
side down and empty it? If you have got the market in 
your hand and believe that you understand the interest 
of the country better than anybody else, is it patriotic 
to let it go? 

I was trying to analyze the other day what a Republi- 
can is. (Laughter.) I do not want to say anything 
about that great body of my fellow-countrymen in 
various parts of America who have formed the bad habit 
of voting the Republican ticket. They are not the men 
I am talking about, but the Republican leaders, the men 
who establish the ideals and policies of that party, 
how would you describe them? Why, I would say that 
they are men who actually believe that the only men 
whose advice it is safe to take with regard to the hap- 
piness and prosperity of America are the men who have 
the biggest material stake in the enterprises of America. 
They believe, therefore, that America ought to be gov- 
erned by trustees—(applause)—and that those trus- 
tees are the managers of the oldest and greatest ‘‘vested 
interests’? of the country. ‘That is a workable theory, 
that is a theory that has obtained time out of mind. 
It happens, though these gentlemen have forgotten it, 
that America was established to get rid of it, but, having 


COLLEGE AND STATE 379 


forgotten that, reading only the older books, I dare 
say, reading back of the birth of America, they say 
that there are only a few men with grasp enough of 
affairs and knowledge enough of what are the bases of 
prosperity to run a big, complicated government like 
this. 

Now, as a Democrat—(applause)—I define myself 
by absolutely protesting against that view of public 
affairs. I will not live under trustees if I can help it. 
(Applause.) No group of men less than the majority 
has a right to tell me how I have got to live in America. 
I will submit to the majority, because I have been trained 
to do it, though I may have my private opinion even of 
the majority; but, being a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, 
I am proud to submit my judgment to that majority of 
my fellow-citizens. | 

I know that there are some gum-shoe politicians in 
both camps who do not agree with that theory at all. 
They say, “You need not say much about it out loud, 
but we have got to run these people; this enterprise of 
free government has to be personally conducted’’— (ap- 
plause )—“‘that the people want this or that we do not 
deny, but they do not know what is good for them.” 

So there are two theories of trusteeship, a trusteeship 
of the big interests and a trusteeship of the machine. 
I do not see my way to subscribe to either kind of trus- 
teeship. Not that I am an insurgent, because I believe 
in organization; I believe that party success is impossible 
without organization; but I make this distinction be- 
tween organization and the machine—organization is 
a systematic codperation of men for a common purpose, 
while the machine is a systematic cooperation of men 
for a private purpose. (Great applause.) I know 
what I am talking about, because we have a perfect 
specimen in New Jersey. 

Now I know what supports the machine, because I 
have seen them eat out of a spoon. It is a golden 
spoon, and I have seen the nurse that fed them, and I 


380 COLLEGE AND STATE 


have seen that nurse absolutely impartial as between the 
Republican machine and the Democratic machine— 
(laughter and applause)—and the price of the food, 
the price of the nutrition, is that the machine will be 
good, that it will see that nothing is done that will 
hurt the nurse, that nothing is done which will inter- 
fere with the private understanding that is established 
in the nursery. 

Now this is our problem. We have got to set to work 
now systematically to conserve every resource and every 
energy of America. We have got to realize that an 
absolute readjustment of trade is necessary, and that 
that is an irresistible battering-ram that is battering at 
the wall of the tariff. 

The tariff is not the question it was a generation ago. 
I hear gentlemen make speeches now who do not know 
that, but it is not. They talk as if it was a question 
of protecting us from external competition, while inter- 
nal competition keeps prices down; and I happen to 
know that there is not any internal competition. (Ap- 
plause.) And I happen to know that this great, irre- 
sistible energy of America is doing more than it can 
keep within its own shops and limits, and therefore it 
has got to be released for the commercial conquest of 
the world. Say what you will, whether you are ab- 
stractly for protection or against it, you have got to 
legislate for the release of the energies of America. 

Then, in the next place, there is the whole matter of 
business adjustment. Our laws are just about a genera- 
tion belated, as compared with economic conditions not 
only, but as compared with what other advanced nations 
have done to bring about adjustment. Progressive 
America is belated, has lost its leadership in the hand- 
some competition to show the world the way out of its 
difficulties. 

That is the problem, and that is the reason I say that 
the twentieth century is better worth living in than 
any century that has turned up in our recollection, and 


COLLEGE AND STATE 381 


that is the reason I return with confidence to Virginia 
and say: ‘“‘You remember that your men saw such an 
age when this government was set up; is she daunted 
now to see another age that calls for constructive states- 
manship; has she less vision now; has she lost courage 
now; has she lost the indomitable integrity now that 
she had then?” I wonder what will happen when Vir- 
ginia sees these things with the veil withdrawn from 
her eyes. She will rejoice as a bridegroom coming out 
of his chamber; she will say, ‘“‘Here is an age fit for 
Virginia again.” 

Now, what are we going to do about it? 

A VoicE—Elect Wilson. (Applause.) 

Mr. WiLson—lI hoped that you would not hear that. 
What is our problem? First of all, in order to move 
carefully, we have got to move by standard, have we 
not? You cannot launch out and trust to the currents. 
You have got to have something to steer by. You have 
got to know whither you are bound. 

You know that curious expression, that very erro- 
neous expression we have, when a man has lost his way 
in a forest or a desert. We say he has lost himself. 
Did you ever reflect that that is the only thing he has 
not lost? He is there, but what is lost is all the rest 
of the world. If he knew any fixed thing in his neigh- 
bourhood and knew whether it was east of him, or north 
of him, or south of him, or west of him, he could steer; 
but he has lost even the points of the compass. He 
does not know how he is related to the universe. Now 
unless you have a standard to steer by, you are lost; 
how would you know in which direction to steer, and 
where you are going? If I want to go in that direction, 
this way is not my road. I have got to know whither 
I am bound and what landmarks to guide myself by. 

Do we lack landmarks in America after all those an- 
cient principles which we have set up like secret temples 
in which to go and worship and compose our spirits? 

In the first place, we have the standards of liberty 


382 COLLEGE AND STATE 


and equal opportunity. In the second place we have 
this standard that the people are entitled to a govern- 
ment which represents them—(applause )—and in the 
third place they are entitled to government by that gov- 
ernment which is in the common interest and not in the 
interest of special privilege. 

Are not these the temples of liberty in which we have 
worshipped? Will any man be charged justly with try- 
ing to upset the institutions of America who works in 
the spirit of the worship of those principles? 

What is liberty? You say of a great locomotive 
engine that it runs free. What do you mean? You 
mean that its parts are so assembled and adjusted that 
friction is reduced to a minimum, and that it has perfect 
adjustment. What do you mean by saying that a boat 
sails free? Do you mean that she is independent of the 
great breath that is in the heavens? Do you not mean 
that she has accommodated herself with graceful obeis- 
ance with the winds? ‘Throw her up in the wind and 
see her shiver in every stick and stitch of her, while, as 
a seaman would say, she is held in irons. But let her 
fall off, let her bow to the majesty of nature, and then 
she is free in her adjustment. Let these serve as images. 

Human freedom consists in perfect adjustment of 
human interests to one another. The whole problem is 
a problem of adjustment, reducing the friction; not 
reducing it by mere lubrication—(applause)—not re- 
ducing it by merely pouring in the oil of money and per- 
suasion and flattery, but by so adjusting the parts that 
they love to codperate, that they never buckle up, that 
they never grow so hot that we cannot move the machine 
at all without danger. And unless there is this perfect 
adjustment there will not be given that opportunity 
without which men cannot draw a full breath or live a 
day without despair. Let any group of men have the 
right to say to others, ‘‘You must come to us before you 
can do anything,” and see how long America will be 
considered a place worth living in by free men. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 383 


Our standards, therefore, are these, and we must 
fearlessly use them—we must say to ourselves, “We are 
going to reject everything that does not square with 
those things.” 

Now, what is the fact? I am happy to believe that 
Virginia has so far been spared the mortifying experi- 
ence that has come upon some other States. A great 
many of the States of this Union, ladies and gentlemen, 
have been privately controlled. ‘There has not been an 
adjustment, there has not been free opportunity, there 
has not been government that represented the people, 
there has not been government in the common interests. 
When changes are proposed in those commonwealths, 
do not fall upon those who propose them and say they 
are changing the character of our government; or, if 
you do, admit they are changing it back from what it 
has become to what it was originally intended to be. 
(Applause.) No man that I know of and trust, no man 
that I will consent to consort with, is trying to change 
anything fundamental in America. But what means 
have we of change? Suppose that every time you try 
to change your government, you have the experience that 
the enterprising people of New Jersey had for sixteen 
years together, when to choose between one ticket and 
another ticket was to choose between tweedledum and 
tweedledee. Suppose that every time public opinion 
unmistakably expressed itself, something invisible, some- 
thing intangible, something that you could not get at, 
intervened between you and the action upon which you 
had determined, then what image would arise in your 
mind? ‘That you are disappointed in your institutions 
as they were established? No. ‘That you are mortified 
because of the change that has come over your institu- 
tions by the extent to which they have been debased. 

Now you have got to choose between one of two 
things. I never saw this as I see it now until I came 
into actual, practical contact with the administration 
of a great State. I thank God that I have learned some- 


384 COLLEGE AND STATE 


thing in the last eighteen months, and what I have 
learned is this—that you have got to choose between 
two courses, either constructive leadership which you 
will stand behind to the limit, or else a resort direct to 
_ the people themselves. ‘There are no other ways. 

What does it mean, ladies and gentlemen, that all over 
the United States people are demanding of their Gov- 
ernors and of their President that they take the affairs 
of those people in their own hands, demanding of them 
leadership, not satisfied that they are honest, merely, 
not satisfied with their good intentions, merely, but 
demanding of them that they shall translate their inten- 
tions into such persuasive government that nothing can 
withstand them as spokesmen of the people? ‘That is 
what America is demanding. 

I want to tell a story, if you will allow me; I have 
told it very often, but most of you probably have not 
heard it. While Mr. Roosevelt was President, I 
boarded a train near my home one day and I found 
one of the gentlemen who were then Senators from New 
Jersey on the train. [I dropped into the seat beside 
him. I found him ina very bad humor. I said, ‘‘Sena- 
tor, what is the matter?’ ‘‘Oh,” he said, “I wish the 
Constitution had not given the President the right to 
send messages to Congress.”’ ‘“‘Why,’’ I said, “Senator, 
you are barking up the wrong tree. That is not what is 
the matter. ‘The trouble is that the President publishes 
his messages, and if the country happens to agree with 
him it does not stop to hear what you have to say.” 
The President is the only member of the government 
of the United States elected by the whole people of the 
United States; he is the only one whose utterances go 
into all the newspapers of the United States; and inas- 
much as he has a universal audience and nobody else 
has, nobody can answer him; and if he happens to speak 
the opinion of the country nobody can resist him. (Ap- 
plause.) America has got the zest for that in its imagi- 
nation, and it is unquiet if it does not get a President 


COLLEGE AND STATE 385 


that will do that sort of thing; and I will tell you, having 
ridden a restive State myself, that the people in most 
of the States are very uncomfortable, and full of protest 
if their Governors do not do it. They do not want 
their Governors to exercise any unconstitutional power; 
but what is a more constitutional power than the power 
of public opinion? What is more persuasive and irre- 
sistible than the voice of universal conviction? That is 
the force that can bring back representative government 
in America where it has been lost. Thank God there 
are a great many places where it has not been lost. 
It is a local question, it is a question which each commu- 
nity can settle for itself. 

But if you cannot get constructive leadership, then 
what? If, every time you try it, somebody defeats the 
purpose which your leader expresses, what are you going 
to do about it? 

I want to read you a passage from the Virginia Bill 
of Rights, that immortal document which has been a 
model for declarations of liberty throughout the rest of 
the continent. 

‘That all power is vested in and consequently de- 
rived from the people; that magistrates are their trus- 
tees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.”’ 

Did you ever hear the doctrine put more flatly? 

“That government is, or ought to be, instituted for 
the common benefit, protection and security of the peo- 
ple of the nation or community; of all the various modes 
and forms of government, that is the best which is 
capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness 
and safety and is the most effectually secured against 
the danger of maladministration; and, when any govern- 
ment shall be found inadequate or contrary to these 
purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubit- 
able, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter 
or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most 
conducive to the public weal.” 

I have heard that read a score of times on the Fourth 


386 COLLEGE AND STATE 


of July, but I never heard it read where actual measures 
were being debated. (Applause.) Now I am willing 
to come back to Virginia and stand with George Mason 
on the Bill of Rights. When I do that, I have got 
native soil under my feet, soil more fertile for the 
growth of liberty than any soil that can be compounded. 
(Applause.) And I say that if we cannot get construc- 
tive leadership, and we can if we will, then we have our 
solution in the Bill of Rights, ‘‘“A majority of the com- 
munity hath an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible 
right to reform, alter or abolish it as may be judged 
most conducive to the public weal.” I do not propose 
anything of that sort, I do not believe it is necessary, 
but I do like a gun behind the door. (Applause.) Ido 
like to say to people, ‘‘Well, if you can’t bring the game 
down any other way, go and get your gun.” 

There are wise and unwise ways of shooting. I had 
rather pepper the animal than kill him, I had rather 
touch him once than deprive him of vitality. But you 
can load your gun according to your own taste; you 
do not have to put buckshot in it, you can put the small- 
est birdshot in it that you can find, and then at your 
leisure afterwards pick it out of the hide. But always 
remember that behind you like a bulwark is that Bill of 
Rights, that you have the right to any kind of govern- 
ment you please to have. That is the kind of insurgent 
I am, because all the while I remember the temper of 
America. I honestly believe that a better nation, more 
long enduring, more patiently suffering, more conser- 
vative people does not exist upon God’s planet. I am 
not afraid of the American people getting up and hump- 
ing themselves; I am only afraid they will not; and when 
I hear of popular vote spoken of as mob government, 
I feel like telling the man who utters that that he has 
no right to call himself an American. (Applause.) 
Just picture to yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, the 
great voting population of Virginia, from the sea to the 
far borders in the mountains, going calmly, man by man, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 387 


to the polls, expressing their judgment about public 
affairs, and ask yourselves if that is your image of a 
mob. 

What is a mob? A mob is a body of men in hot con- 
tact with one another, moved by a single, ungovernable 
passion upon doing a hasty thing that they will regret 
the next day. Do you see anything resembling a mob in 
that voting population of the countryside, men tramp- 
ing over the mountainside, men going to the general 
store up in the village, men going in little conversing 
groups to cast their ballots—is that your notion of a 
mob, or is that your picture of free self-governing 
people? 

I am not afraid of the judgments so expressed, if you 
give men time to think, if you give them a clear concep- 
tion of the things they are to vote for; because the 
deepest conviction and passion of my heart is that the 
common people, by which I mean all of us, are to be 
absolutely trusted. (Applause.) The peculiarity of 
some representatives, particularly of the Republican 
party, is that when they talk about the people, they 
obviously do not include themselves. Now if, when you 
think of the people, you are not thinking about yourself, 
then you do not belong in America. I, on the other 
hand, am liberal and generous enough, when I speak 
of the people, to include them. (Applause.) They do 
not deserve it, but then I cannot, if I am true to my 
principles, exclude them, they have got to come in. You 
know that delightful expression Horace Greeley, who 
was one of the general advocates of a general amnesty 
to the Southern people, made use of in an eager argu- 
ment one day. He said, ‘You know, we have got to 
forgive them, damn them.” (Laughter and applause. ) 
That is the only working program. You cannot have 
the people unless you include everybody, and therefore 
I am ready to admit everybody. 

When I look back at the processes of history, when 
I look back at the genesis of America, I see this written 


388 COLLEGE AND STATE 


over every page, that the nations are renewed from the 
bottom, not from the top; that the genius which springs 
up from the ranks of unknown men is the genius which 
renews the youth and energy of the people; and in every 
age of the world, where you stop the courses of the blood 
from the roots, you injure the great, useful structure to 
the extent that atrophy, death and decay are sure to 
ensue. That is the reason that an hereditary monarchy 
does not work; that is the reason that an hereditary aris- 
tocracy does not work; that is the reason that everything 
of that sort is full of corruption and ready to decay. 

So I say that our challenge of to-day is to include in 
the partnership all those great bodies of unnamed men 
who are going to produce our future leaders and renew 
the future energies of America. And as I confess that, 
as I confess my belief in the common man, I know what 
I am saying. ‘he man who is swimming against the 
stream knows the strength of it. ‘The man who is in 
the mélée knows what blows are being struck and what 
blood is being drawn. The man who is on the make is 
a judge of what is happening in America, not the man 
who has made; not the man who has emerged from the 
flood, not the man who is standing on the bank looking 
on, but the man who is struggling for his life and for the 
lives of those who are dearer to him than himself. ‘That 
is the man whose judgment will tell you what is going 
on in America, and that is the man by whose judgment 
I for one wish to be guided—(applause)—-so that as 
the tasks multiply and the days come when all will seem 
confusion and dismay, we may lift up our eyes to the 
hills out of these dark valleys where the crags of special 
privilege overshadow and darken our path, to where 
the sun gleams through the great passage in the broken 
cliffs, the sun of God, the sun meant to regenerate men, 
the sun meant to liberate them from their passion and 
despair and to lift us to those uplands which are the 
promised land of every man who desires liberty and 
achievement. 


LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY. 


ADDRESS BEFORE THE IROQUOIS CLUB, CHICAGO, AT 
HOTEL LA SALLE, ON LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY, FEBRU- 
ARY 12, I912. IN PAMPHLET. 


Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and Fellow Citizens: 


FEEL it a great honour to stand here in the presence 

of this distinguished body of men in order to speak 
once more the faith that is in me. I have many times 
spoken in the city of Chicago and I want to say with 
commiseration for them, that many gentlemen here pres- 
ent have often heard me, and yet it is always delightful 
to be able to speak again to those with whom I have 
been brought in close association, on those principles 
which I know to be sound and patriotic, upon a theme 
which invites any man to speak the truth. For the 
thought that is uppermost in the minds of all of us is, 
of course, that this is Lincoln’s birthday, and I know 
of no example which more provokes than his simplicity, 
sincerity and truth. 

I sometimes think it is a singular circumstance that 
the present Republican party should have sprung from 
Lincoln, but that is one of the mysteries of Providence 
and for my part I feel the closest kinship in principle 
and in political lineament to that great mind. I wonder 
if we appreciate, gentlemen, just how apposite his exam- 
ple is to the present moment. Here was a case where 
the nation had come to a critical turning point in its 
history, where it had to make a choice whether it 
would divide or remain united upon a fundamental 
question of social structure—a question which was all 
the more difficult to approach and more difficult to 
solve because it involved so much passion, because it 


389 


390 COLLEGE AND STATE 


involved some of the deepest feelings that men can 
acquire. ‘here is nothing so solid in our present social 
structure as was exhibited in the old social structure of 
the United States, for at that time there were roots 
that had run back generation after generation, and to 
disturb them seemed almost to disturb the foundation 
of the life of the people. At that critical juncture what 
happened? Was a man picked out who had become 
experienced and sophisticated among the ruling class of 
the community? Is it not an interesting circumstance 
that a man should have come almost untutored from the 
mass of the people, who had the wisdom, who had the 
vision as well as the courage and sagacity to handle a 
great crisis with a steadiness which made it possible 
to save the nation? I do not know any life which more 
illustrates the fundamental faith of democracy. ‘The 
fundamental faith of democracy is that out of a mass of 
uncatalogued men you can always count upon genius 
asserting itself, genius suited to mankind, genius suited 
to the task. The richness of a democracy is in this— 
that it never has to predict who is going to save it. It 
never relies upon those of established influence. The 
gates of opportunity are wide open and he may enter 
who is fit. And when you look back to that rugged, 
almost ungainly figure, like the gnarled oak of the forest 
that suddenly arose and showed itself to be head and 
shoulders not only in physical but moral stature above 
its fellows, and then see the sad and wistful eyes with 
which he moved among his fellow-men, not as a man 
who works revolution, but as a man who interprets the 
thought of his own and insists also upon all classes 
listening to this fundamental voice of the people them- 
selves, is not that a vindication of democracy? We 
don’t have to train men to interpret the United States. 
They are born with the largesse of Providence, a Provi- 
dence that has always tried to teach mankind that only 
God can classify man and that men cannot. 

What produced the birth of Freedom in the modern 


COLLEGE AND STATE 391 


world? It was the conception that every man stood 
naked and individual in his responsibility before his 
God and Maker and that the only test was the test of 
native worth and native principle. That’s what has been 
the foundation of liberty, and so far as we have for- 
gotten and obscured it, so far as we have impaired its 
operation, we have gone astray and found ourselves 
in a jungle from which we do not see any way of extri- 
cation. Therefore, I do not know of any better day 
upon which to explain what seems to me to be the duty 
of the Democracy than the birthday of Lincoln. 

I heard a story about Lincoln the other day—a new 
one—which has such a distinctive flavour of authenticity 
that I am sure it was true. I believe it was told by Mr. 
Horace White, who was a young reporter at the time of 
the debates between Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. 
As I was told the story, at one of the very best of those 
debates he was sitting on the platform in an open space 
near Lincoln. Lincoln was seated, as usual, in his long 
linen duster and alongside of him was a lady whom Mr. 
White did not know. Mr. Douglas spoke first and when 
he had sat down Mr. Lincoln leisurely got up, slowly 
removed the linen duster, carefully folded it up, placed 
it in the lap of the lady who was sitting by and said, 
“Won't you be kind enough to hold this garment until 
I go stone Stephen?” Now, Stephen Douglas, as the 
men of Illinois need not be told, was a very astute and 
very admirable figure in our politics, but just at that 
moment Douglas stood for an order of things, a process 
of reasoning in politics, about to be rejected and this 
man of the people used as the missiles with which to 
stone Stephen not any words of personal bitterness, 
nothing but the words of common, homely reason and a 
fearless analysis of the existing situation of affairs in 
the United States. He uttered, you will remember, 
that immortal sentence, ‘‘I do not say that the Union 
will be destroyed, but I do say that it cannot continue 
to exist half free and half slave.’’ He predicted a 


392 COLLEGE AND STATE 


peaceful outcome, he predicted an outcome that would 
save the unity and integrity of the Nation, but he also 
fearlessly stated the fact that as it stood it could not 
go on. And, gentlemen, that statement ought to be 
made now—that as our economic affairs are now organ- 
ized they cannot go on. There is no such deep division 
as existed in Lincoln’s day: it is more intricate, it 1s 
more difficult to-day than the division which existed 
in Lincoln’s day, but it is not of the sort that invites 
the passions of whole populations, thank God. It is 
something that can, by clear thinking, be dealt with and 
successfully dealt with, and no man who is a friend of 
this country predicts any of the deeper sorts of trouble, 
any of the revolutionary processes which destroy and do 
not restore. Our task is one of restoration, of refresh- 
ment, of rejuvenation, of the recovery of things which 
we all revere but which are overcast and overweighted 
with all sorts of things which we wish, by slow and 
prudent stages, to rid ourselves of. But, notwithstand- 
ing that we wish this, that we have the time and we 
have the temper in which to solve these things, we ought 
to be perfectly radical in our statement of the fact that 
as at present organized the thing cannot go on. That 
is really not debatable. What is debatable is the wise 
thing to do. 

As I have looked about me and as I have travelled 
from one part of this country to the other I have been 
struck by nothing so much as this—the unity in the 
thinking and in the temper of the people of all parts of 
the United States. Not long ago I had the pleasure 
of visiting the city of Madison, Wisconsin, and then 
proceeding directly from there, without interruption of 
journey, to Dallas, Texas, and if I had not known that 
I had not been transported in my dreams, had not known 
the space I had traversed between Wisconsin and Texas, 
I should have thought I was in the same state, for there 
was the same point of view, the same purpose in politics, 
the same desire for emancipation from the old connec- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 393 


tions; that will allow men to argue and also to act the 
way they feel instead of acting the way they are labelled; 
the same determination to pick out men and measures 
as they please, and not to be satisfied until they had 
picked out the right men and measures according to the 
purposes they had framed in their hearts; the determina- 
tion to see to it that they did not get fooled by anybody 
any more. And there are various ways of getting 
fooled. You can get fooled by people who think they 
mean what they say and don’t; you can get fooled by 
people who know they don’t mean what they say and 
yet say it. You can even get fooled by people who 
earnestly mean what they say and don’t know what 
they are talking about. And the people are out to catch 
all kinds of fraud in respect of the man who its a fraud 
upon himself as well as the man who is a fraud upon 
them, and in the circumstances it is a most interesting 
and exhilarating field in which to play ball, because you 
feel that the combination of politics that is about to 
take place is going to take place with an impulse gained 
from a new generation. It is a very interesting fact that 
the harness of modern politics sits most lightly upon 
the youngest men. The young men of this country are 
now about to take a serious part in the plot and they 
are determined that they are going to make the plot, 
not such as it was theoretically represented to them to 
be when they were in school and college, but such as 
they have found it is. I myself contributed to deceive 
them at one time in some respects, but I know more 
than I did then; I have found some gentlemen out. 
Distance and perspective make a great deal of differ- 
ence. When you get on the inside things look somewhat 
different from the way they looked on the outside, and 
you can always test a man by the very simple rule, put 
in very plain language, which we generally express when 
we say ‘“‘put up or shut up.” Do the thing you profess 
to believe or else get out of the game. I used to take 
a somewhat active part in advising men younger than 


394 COLLEGE AND STATE 


myself about the game of football, and we always 
knew when we were picking out promising material for 
behind the line that it did not prove a man was a good 
halfback because he would take the ball and start with 
it instantly. You had to wait until he approached an 
opening and see how he struck the line, and if he hesi- 
tated to go through there was no more time wasted on 
him. The way you tell a man is whether he still has 
his head down and steam on when he strikes the line, 
because most of them will go down very finely and then 
check and stop and wonder what is going to happen 
when that mass of men come in his way. ‘There is the 
same thing in politics. We need a great many men to 
forge through the line. 

I am going to speak very frankly to you to-day about 
what I conceive to be the opportunity of the Demo- 
cratic party. That’s the opportunity I am interested in. 
I am not responsible for the Republican party. I 
would wish to mention men in my prayers to a higher 
authority who are, because the Republican field is singu- 
larly broken and what really needs to be expounded 
in order to explain the Democratic opportunity, is why 
the Republican party is so broken. Why is it that you 
cannot for the life of you calculate which are in the 
numerical ascendency, the Standpatters or the Insur- 
gents? Of course the Insurgents make more noise than 
the Standpatters. Most of the Standpatters wear gum 
shoes and it is impossible by the assistance of your 
ear to count the number of men with gum shoes on, 
whereas it is quite possible to reckon the host of their 
opponents, for they all shout and there is a great deal 
of noise among the allies of war on the Insurgent side 
of the Republican camp, but nobody quite knows who 
is in command of the camp. All of that is due to the 
fact that the so-called Insurgent Republicans know some- 
thing has happened to the Republican party; that it 
has lost its way. But whether it has lost its way or not 
every man with a weather eye must perceive that it is 


COLLEGE AND STATE 395 


not bound for any accommodating haven, that the 
country is out of humour with those who recently ad- 
ministered its affairs; that it does not believe they are 
bound for a definite enough goal and does not believe 
they know how to get there even if they believe they 
know they do. I am not saying this by way of harsh 
criticism but by way of analysis. I am not arguing 
with you; I am telling you. Now, on the other hand, 
you have an extraordinarily stubborn tradition and that 
tradition is that every man of business standing and of 
business foresight will naturally ally himself with the 
Republican party, because that’s the business man’s 
party. That is the proposition that has been established 
in this country by those elections which have time out 
of mind been personally conducted. These people have 
had expounded to them so long and forcibly the idea 
that nobody understands the prosperity of America ex- 
cept Republicans that a good many intelligent people 
have actually come to believe it and it is expected of 
young men, if they are going to get into the ranks of 
solid persons, that they will ally themselves with the 
Republican party. | 

Now, the business of America must be taken care of. 
Nobody denies that. America is a business country and 
the particular thing of which business is intolerant is 
ill-considered and rapid change. It is profoundly dis- 
trustful of everything that it regards as experimental. . 
It believes that sure perdition lies in the direction of a 
theoretical program and therefore it shrugs its shoul- 
ders with regard to any such out and out doctrine as free 
trade, and to say a man is a free trader is almost as much 
as to say that his credit is not good at the bank, that he 
does not understand business, that he does not under- 
stand all those interests which have been built together 
and become vested by reason of the advantages which 
have been founded upon a protective tariff. When I 
talk with Insurgent Republicans and we lay our views 
frankly before one another, the only difference I can 


396 COLLEGE AND STATE 


find between myself and them is this: they have a pro- 
found reverence for the theory of protection. ‘They 
are willing to let down the bars of the tariff a good 
deal, willing to reduce it if it doesn’t go down very far, 
but even to take down a single bar seems a concession. 
They say, “The fence was higher when the old man 
was living and I don’t know what the old man would say 
if his son should take down a bar. The cattle might 
get out. I recognize the spirit—the cows are free 
agents, but I am not going to take the fence down. I 
would do it with a bad conscience and if I took it down 
I wouldn’t dare join the old man in the next world.” 

Now, I have not the least feeling of piety on the 
question of protection. The whole question is one of 
expediency pure and simple. Either it is or it is not 
good for the country. If it is good for the country 
we ought to have it. If it is not, we ought not to have 
it, and if it is good in some degree for the country we 
ought to have it in that degree and no more. Every- 
thing you say about it must be proved by data and facts 
and not by any theory. I have no feeling of piety with 
regard to the doctrine of free trade or any political 
doctrine except the political doctrine of the equal rights 
of men. The standard is the actual good of the country, 
not any theoretical measure of that good nor anything 
taken out of theoretical books. 

Now, we are in the presence, therefore, of a state 
of mind and a state of mind is a very serious thing, 
I can tell you. A panic is a state of mind. When a 
panic comes on there is just as much money in the 
country as when it started and there is just as much 
credit; that is to say, men are just as much deserving 
of credit as they were before it started, but it is a state 
of mind where nobody any longer knows it is safe to 
trust, where everybody is looked upon with distrust and 
every enterprise is supposed to be overlooked. There 
is therefore universal timidity, and inasmuch as states 
of mind in a crisis can ruin men’s fortunes, a state of 


COLLEGE AND STATE 397 


mind is a very serious thing. And this present state of 
mind of the country at large is a very serious thing, 
which the successful party must understand and arrest. 
The fortunate circumstance is that business is finding out 
for itself that something is the matter. It does not have 
to be told by politicians; it knows something is the 
matter, for business is aware that privilege has lifted 
its ugly head in the organization of business and that in 
order that the average business man should have the free 
opportunities of his own occupation something has got 
to be done to stop the domination and tyranny of privi- 
lege. In other words, business itself is aware that it is 
in bondage and it is determined to break out of bondage. 

The pathetic thing to my mind, gentlemen, is this: 
I make it my business to talk to as many men engaged 
in large affairs as I can get access to, to lay my mind 
frankly before them and induce them to lay theirs 
frankly before me, and what strikes me is the extraor- 
dinary number of men who absolutely agree with me 
as to what ought to be done but beseech me not to use 
their names or to quote them. In other words, some- 
thing exists in this country of which business men are 
afraid, and if there is something to make the business 
men of this country afraid it ought to be removed at any 
cost. And so business is getting a little more tolerant | 
before the proposals of change. Business is saying, 
‘After all there is something the matter. We are per- 
fectly willing to sit down and work out an analysis of 
what it is that is the matter and we will assist in correct- 
ing it if you will only deal temperately with it and in 
the terms which we can understand.’”’ And business is 
beginning to realize, also, that the combinations—and I 
am not now speaking of individual trusts, for the prob- 
lem is much bigger than that, but with the combinations 
of personnel, the understandings, private tips; of those 
things which I need not describe to this body of men, 
that hold you together or else make it dangerous for 
you to break out; that the very privilege that is domi- 


398 COLLEGE AND STATE 


nating business is seeing to it that politics is dominated 
by its purposes and that most of those processes of 
politics of which we have grown suspicious are allied 
with processes of business of which we also have grown 
suspicious. When | hear you say to me let business 
. alone, I say I will do it upon one condition; that you 
will let politics alone. Politics did not enter business. 
- Let me tell you that business entered politics. Now if 
you want this thing remedied take business out of 
politics. ‘Take your own condition—and I am now talk- 
ing on the chance that I am addressing some people 
who hold the opinion I have just quoted—if you want 
the politician to give business a chance, then all I have 
to say is, give politics a chance to act independently 
of the influence of money and of privilege. These are 
some of the things, gentlemen, to which my eyes have 
been opened since I got on the inside. I have seen men 
with my own eyes, in at least one state legislature, who 
did not dare to vote the way they thought and who 
clearly disclosed to me in private that they wouldn't 
dare say it in public, and for their sakes I wouldn’t dare 
use their names for they would be ruined—who disclosed 
to me in private those business connections which had 
them in their grip. They told me if they voted the way 
they thought they could not renew their notes at certain 
banks. This is terrible. It is disgraceful. It is the 
grip of business on politics, and I say, let the throat of 
politics go, withdraw this iron hand and let the whole- 
some blood get into the brain again. Mark you, gentle- 
men, I know just as well as you do that this is not 
what most business men do. I am honoured by the 
friendship and confidence of scores of business men who 
study and understand the interests of this country just 
as well as any man of my acquaintance; but what some- 
times makes the heat come into my blood is to realize 
how a small number of men have put their comrades in 
business in a false attitude toward public affairs by the 
things they ventured privately to do. No man of con- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 399 


science or who knew anything would enter a protest 
against the business men of this honest nation, but it 1s 
because we are fighting the old thing that I am so much 
interested in the cause we are fighting—the old thing of 
privilege, of little groups of men, the thing we have been 
fighting time out of mind ever since the conception of 
liberty was born. 

Such is the state of mind of the country, and now the 
question is, will the country trust the Democratic party 
to undertake the solution of these difficulties? I say 
that it is not a question of individual leaders—it is a 
question of the disposition and methods of the Demo- 
cratic party. Upon what terms will they trust the 
Democratic party? Why, in the first place, they will 
trust it just so soon as they make sure that the Demo- 
cratic party knows what’s the matter, that it does not 
see phantasms, that it does not see unreal things, that 
it has gone to the bottom of the items which constitute 
the process that we should correct; that it has the inti- 
mate knowledge of the actual things to be done which 
will make the touch of its hand definite when it comes to 
the cure. I am fond of using a figure of speech in this 
connection which I think is a very useful figure. If a 
man is ill, the whole of whose system is sound except 
that in some one place there is a malignant growth, what 
does the surgeon do if he wants to save his patient’s 
life? He cuts out the malignant growth, but he cannot 
do so until he knows just where the growth is, and it is 
not safe for him to approach it unless he can tenderly 
and delicately separate the intervening muscles and 
nerves and vital fibres and touching nothing else, finds 
the exact spot, and with a skill, bred of knowledge, ex- 
tricates the one thing that interferes with the whole- 
some course of the blood. And the country is going to 
judge the Democratic party by its prognosis and diag- 
nosis. It has got to show that it knows just where and 
what the malignant growth is and then it has got to 


400 COLLEGE AND STATE 


show that it can produce surgeons who can cut that 
thing out without hurting anything else. 

Now, the diagnosis is going on. It is somewhat un- 
pleasant. It is very embarrassing to have your interior 
structure inquired into. ‘There is an intimacy about the 
inquiries of the surgeon which is in one sense highly un- 
constitutional. It invades the very intimacies of the 
individual structure, but there is this inquiry going on. 
The Stanley committee has been conducting a part of 
the prognosis. There are inquiries going on which are 
inquiring into the particulars item by item of the proc- 
esses by which prices are determined irrespective of the 
demand in the market; the processes by which the prod- 
uct is controlled and competition excluded, the processes 
by which the output is limited and thereby the income 
determined; the processes by which free competitors 
are thrown out of competition or pushed to the wall. 
These things are being, item by item, disclosed. 

Now, when we get these items—we don’t have to 
wait for all of them, we can go after them one at a 
time—having discovered your item, then get your cure. 
You know if you want to make a rabbit pie, first get 
your rabbit—and so with these; having discovered them, 
then see that the Democratic party is wise enough to 
suggest a way in which the remedies can be matched 
with the details. We have got the principles. We 
did not have to have statutes to forbid monopoly in the 
United States. The immemorial principles of the com- 
mon law forbid monopoly. It needed only the genius 
of those who could blaze a way into new territory, to 
make statutes unnecessary in stopping the processes and 
methods of monopoly. We are not debating monopoly. 
We are debating the very much more difficult problem 
of how to stop monopoly; and whenever we see mo- 
nopoly showing its head there is the place for your 
shillalah. I withdraw the analogy because I don’t look 
upon politics as a Donnybrook Fair, but with that 
apology I would not further amend the indictment. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 401 


We know the items. Now it is perfectly possible to 
direct the processes of your law against the items with- 
out disturbing anything that is honest and natural and 
inevitable in the development of modern business. The 
enemy of business is a man with a programme which goes 
further than he can see, or with a programme the items 
of which are not based upon the indisputable evidence 
produced in the examination Just so long as you feel 
your way in politics you are unreasonably disturbing 
business, but so soon as you know your way, go the 
whole length without stopping to ask anybody’s leave. 
Correct the mistakes, correct the errors, check the things 
that are wrong, and you cannot make a mistake in check- 
ing anything that is wrong. Now I, for my part, feel 
that the Democratic party is better qualified to do these 
things I will say than any other party, because the 
Democratic party keeps its connections and has kept 
its connections time out of mind with those things 
fundamental in our political conceptions. I always re- 
member, gentlemen, that America was established not to 
create wealth—though any nation must create wealth 
which is going to make an economic foundation for its 
life—but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal. America 
has put itself under bonds to the earth to discover and 
maintain liberty among men, and if she cannot see lib- 
erty now with the clear, unerring vision she had at the 
outset, she has lost her title, she has lost every claim to 
the leadership and respect of the nations of the world. . 
If she is going to put her material processes before her 
spiritual processes, then all I have to say is she has 
ceased to be America and should withdraw the name in 
order to withdraw the promise, because that name has 
always shone here in the West like a beacon of hope 
and confidence for all the nations of the world. Men 
have turned their eyes towards America in order that 
they might release themselves from the very kind of 
privilege which we have permitted in some places to 
grow; and if we discover that we ourselves have fallen 


402 COLLEGE AND STATE 


into the slough, that we ourselves have not taken the 
ways that lie upon firm ground, the ways that lift them- 
selves up the long slopes that are the slopes of ultimate 
emancipation, then how will the hope of the world sub- 
side, how will men cry out in despair that the great light 
in the West has gone out. Unless, gentlemen, we once 
more get in our hearts the passion for what America 
_ stands for we shall accomplish nothing. And in this 
age of difficulty and perplexity, how does any man re- 
lieve himself from perplexity? If he goes to bed at 
night arguing upon the grounds of solvency and expedi- 
ency he will toss all night long on his bed, but if it is 
proof he desires, there is only one rule, and that is the 
rule of right and justice, and if he says, “I am going 
to stand by that, cost what it may,” then sleep will come 
to him as it came to him when a little child and he 
imagined that angels were about his couch. That is 
the temper that makes America and I, for my part, am 
confident with the confidence of youth that this spirit has 
come back in America. I don’t profess its coming. ‘The 
great hurricane with which comment moves from one 
part of this country to another is to realize that it has 
come, that men are ready to make sacrifices in order 
that the public weal may be served and that there is 
henceforth to be a common council into which men will 
enter, not only that they and their individual fortunes 
may be served, but that the great fortunes of America 
may also be served; I am not speaking in my interest. 
No, gentlemen, you knew when you came here that you 
were not going to listen to a man who was going to 
commend himself to you. You knew you were going to 
listen to a man who whether he was right or wrong was 
going to tell you what he thought and leave it to the 
jury and not the private councils held with men of 
understanding. In this country I am aware of the com- 
ing on of a new spirit—that old subtle cunning and 
sagacity that used to be the rule in America. The old 
idea of lie low and let the thing work itself out is dis- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 403 


appearing. You can't lie low any more, because there 
is a searchlight moving everywhere. You know the old 
quotation, Heaven lies about us in our infancy, and the 
cynical modification of it is that in old age we lie 
about ourselves; but we have not reached the stage of 
senility as yet in which we do lie about ourselves. 
Frankness has come to be the law of life amongst us— 
amongst those of us who respect ourselves and respect 
our communities and hope for the best things in politics, 
and that’s the reason the lines of party are being ob- 
scured; that’s the reason men are about to treat them 
according to their right temperaments and purposes; 
that’s the reason the standpat dam that has been built 
so high but of such stolid, stupid masonry, is going to 
give way. Nothing is more solid than the solidity of 
the willingness of men to think. After twenty years of 
teaching I was greatly comforted by a professor at Yale 
who told me that after an equal length of time he had 
come to the conclusion that the human mind had infinite 
measures of resources; and these resources are not go- 
ing to give way, but what is going to happen is this: 
Engineers are coming to the front. They say you don’t 
have to break that dam down; it would flood the coun- 
try. You have to penetrate it, and let this great body 
of water piled up behind run through those great 
courses, alongside of which we can build mills and happy 
homes and see that the future generations of America 
know what the power is amongst them and can guide it 
and trust it. That’s what is going to happen and then 
we will be thankful; and I am thankful the standpat 
dam was so long unpenetrated. It gave us time to 
think. That’s the only thing I have to say in favour of 
chewing tobacco; it gives you time to think between 
sentences. We have had time to think and examine and 
we have concluded we cannot break the “dam” thing 
down, but we can penetrate it and take control of these 
great forces which have been built up behind it; and so 
far as ] am concerned the future is a future of hope for 


404 COLLEGE AND STATE 


the Democratic party, because it has a prospect of vi- 
sion, of ideals applied, of knowledge soberly acted upon, 
of purposes indomitably applied, until nothing can re- 
sist the steady impact of its force. And so in the twen- 
tieth century we shall renew the distinction which came 
upon America at the end of the eighteenth century, 
where, looking upon our own affairs without excitement, 
without revolutionary impulse, we altered the processes 
of our life to suit the sober processes of our law and 
America has come again upon a constructive age of 
politics where her statesmen shall talk business and her 
business consent to the processes of liberty and achieve- 
ment. 


THE TARIFF AND THE TRUSTS 


ADDRESS DELIVERED AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, FEBRU- 
ARY 24, I912. FROM PAMPHLET IN THE LIBRARY 
OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 


A Pieces introduction to which I have just listened cer- 
tainly puts me under a great obligation for the 
generous judgment which it embodies. But I am very 
much afraid that it will be very difficult for me to play 
up to the role, and I want to say at the outset, while I 
appreciate most profoundly all that has been said, that 
I do not come here as a Wilson man. [I think I can say 
most sincerely that what stirs my blood in the present 
contest is not that it may affect me, but that there is 
a great thing to be done, which intelligent men can com- © 
bine to do successfully and triumphantly; that there is an 
opportunity now immediately awaiting the Democratic 
party such as has never awaited it before. I was say- 
ing just now to Mr. Douglas that it was an interesting 
thing to me that there was one lesson that some men 
never seemed to learn, and that was that whenever they 
tried to serve themselves and made it obvious that they 
were trying to serve themselves, the thing they least suc- 
ceeded in doing was serving themselves; that the only 
way in which you can connect yourself with the forces 
of success is by connecting yourself with the forces of 
society, because every man will be as little as himself 
if his thought is centred upon himself. (Applause). 


You know that we are sometimes laughed at by for- 
eigners for boasting of the size of America, and they 
naturally suggest that we didn’t make America, that 
we didn’t make the physical continent we tread upon, and 
therefore it is hardly to our credit that it is so big. 

405 


406 COLLEGE AND STATE 


But it seems to me they do not discriminate. Men are 
_ gust as big as the things they dominate, and we have 
dominated a continent and therefore have reason to be 
proud of its size. Our greatness, the elasticity of our 
institutions, the adaptability of our life, is measured 
by the scale of a continent. Having covered that con- 
tinent with happy homes and successful institutions, we 
have the right to be proud of its size. And so it seems 
to me with the individual. In proportion as he can 
cover with his activities and with his imaginations a 
great plan, so is he himself enlarged, and in proportion 
as a party can conceive a great opportunity and forget 
the things that may come to individuals in the struggle, 
in that proportion is it noble and in that proportion is it 
in the road to success. No party that centres its view 
upon itself can ever be serviceable to the United States. 
The United States can be served only in its own humour, 
and according to its own facts and circumstances. What 
moves my imagination is this, that the circumstances are 
not now what they ever were before in the United States. 
For example: we all of us agree that the central issue 
in the next campaign will probably be, as so often be- 
fore, the question of the tariff. But the tariff is not 
now the question that it was a generation ago; the 
tariff is not now the question it was ten or fifteen years 
ago. Nature, and the development of our enterprises, 
the change in the circumstances of the world, would have 
taken charge of the tariff question. ‘Take this single 
fact, for example—what made it very difficult to answer 
the old arguments of the advocates of a protective tariff 
was this. They pointed out what was perfectly obvious, 
that within the United States, with its great size and in- 
finite variety, there was an unparalleled area of absolute 
free trade. The Constitution was set up in order that 
there might be free trade. There would have been no 
Constitution of the United States if it had not been that 
the colonies that had become states were determined 
to pull down the economic barriers between themselves. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 407 


That was what led to the Annapolis Convention, and the 
Philadelphia Convention. ‘They first met to make a 
commercial arrangement and upon that commercial 
arrangement built the institutions of the Nation. The 
Constitution was made in order that there might be free 
trade between all the states, and that was the object of 
the power over interstate commerce that was granted 
to the Congress. And so, because there was domestic 
competition it was very difficult to answer the arguments 
of the protectionists, that protection does not directly 
govern price and therefore was not directly a burden 
upon the consumer, because the price was kept down 
by domestic competition upon the vast scale of a con- 
tinent. All that has been altered in the last decade. In 
field after field of our economic exchanges competition 
has ceased to determine price. Monopoly in one form 
or another has taken the place of competition, and now, 
without competition, these gentlemen who lie so snugly 
behind the high wall of protection are determining arbi- 
trarily what the prices of everything, from foodstuffs 
up, are to be. 

It is not the old question. Senator La Follette, for 
example, in his interesting autobiography, calls atten- 
tion to this fact, that the old argument so prominent on 
the lips of McKinley and Blaine, for instance, is abso- 
lutely obliterated by change of circumstances. Not 
only so, but in those old days we did not have such a 
surplus of manufactured articles as we have now. An 
interesting fact is, that our exports of grain with which 
we used to feed the world have been steadily falling off 
until the grain dealers tell me that we are within sight of 
the vanishing point, not because we are producing less, 
or because it is harder to sell our grain, but because we 
are needing more ourselves. And the proportion of 
grain to the domestic demand is very much smaller than 
it used to be. We are, therefore, coming to the point 
at which we do not export grain and cannot pay our in- 
ternational exchanges except by other products. 


408 COLLEGE AND STATE 


At the same time these tremendously stimulated 
manufacturers of ours have piled up their output to 
such an extent that they must have an outlet in foreign 
fields, or else there will be a congestion that will operate 
calamitously upon the economic conditions of the coun- 
try. 

But what has happened in the meantime? By the 
most stupendous stupidity on record we have obliterated 
our merchant marine. We haven't got the ships in 
which to carry these goods. We are not allowed to have 
the ships in which to carry these goods upon any terms 
by which we can afford to own them. So that we are 
very philanthropically digging a ditch through the Isth- 
mus to the south of us for the use’of the ships of all 
the world except American ships, for there aren’t any 
American ships to go through. And we are told that 
the railways of the country are so jealous of their carry- 
ing trade that they are trying to prevent the loans 
necessary in order to build up new lines of ships to 
reach to the South. I don’t know whether that is true 
or not, but it would be just like them for stupidity. 

The trouble with our time is not so much selfishness as 
ignorance, inability to see what is going on under the 
eyes of the world. Now these are the things that are 
going on, and the nation that has the ships to carry her 
goods has the hands with which she can reach the foreign 
markets, and if she hasn’t got the ships she has to go 
there under such disadvantages as the owners of foreign 
ships, owned by competing nations, choose to impose 
upon her. 

Not only that, but we haven’t a banking system which 
enables us to set up satisfactory exchange with foreign 
markets. Our National Banks are actually not allowed 
to deal in accepted bills of lading, so that Canadian 
bankers come down to New York, San Francisco and 
other ports and set up branch banking houses which can 
do this absolutely essential function of international 
trade. We have been so rooted in our provincialism, so 


COLLEGE AND STATE 4.09 


unaware of the very processes of our own industrial life, 
that we have cut ourselves off from the means of making 
ourselves supreme in the world from an economic point 
of view. 

All this has been going on without the leave of the 
gentlemen who have established and maintained a pro- 
tective policy. It has been like a great underground 
body of creeping waters, destroying the very foundation 
of the citadel which they thought they had built so 
stout. At the same time what is about to happen? 
Why all the threads are going to run in other directions; 
because the minute you cut that canal through the 
Isthmus then the great arteries of trade are not going 
to run exclusively East and West as they run now, they 
are going to sweep around to the South; they are 
going to fertilize that great valley of the Mississippi as 
it never was fertilized before with industry and com- 
merce; and all the railroads instead of shipping outward 
to the ports are going to find their lines running inward. 
There are going to be more carrying problems than ever 
before, but not in the same parts of the country as 
before. No one can stay the change. And these gentle- 
men want to stand pat, are standing pat, while the tide 
is rising around them. You can see by their disconcerted 
manner that it is almost getting to their breathing appa- 
ratus. (Applause. ) 

In other words, what fills me with confidence in the 
future is this, that the world is not waiting upon the - 
stupidity of Republican politics. The world has an awk- 
ward way of taking things into its own hands. ‘The life 
of the people must in the long run express itself in its 
politics, and it does not now express itself in this coun- 
try in the politics we have been accustomed to in the 
last decade. (Applause.) 

These gentlemen may sit tight and hard as long as 
they please but they will be hoist by powers they can- 
not control. The whole query of the future is, does the 


410 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Democratic party understand the job and does it know 
how to do it? 

We all feel the inflation of pleasure as Democrats 
that this is a Democratic year, but it isn’t going to be 
a Democratic year if the Democratic party does not 
understand the job. (Applause.) Democratic en- 
thusiasm isn’t going to do it. Democratic confidence 
of success isn’t going to doit. The selection of the right 
candidate isn’t going to do it. People of this country 
know what they want and what they are after is not the 
candidate but the goods. If the candidate is suitable for 
their purposes, and the party puts him upon a platform 
that expresses those purposes, then they are for him, 
otherwise they will wait. They would rather bear the 
ills they have than fly to others that they know not of. 

That is the temper of America. There is a great deal 
of talk in America, but it is, when all is said, one of the 
most inveterately conservative people in the world. 
Americans talk much more freely than they act, partic- 
ularly in the field of politics. And in a country knitted 
together with the most delicate and intricate fibres of 
business, the one thing that is most dreaded is ill-con- 
sidered experiment. America is not afraid. America 
is not afraid of acting on principle, of moving, of chang- 
ing, but is afraid of changing by uncalculated courses. 
It does not want schemes the operation of which it can- 
not foresee the effect of, and therefore it always wants 
a bill of particulars, and we are getting ready to present 
a bill of particulars. For example, round about this 
core of all questions which lies in the tariff, lie all these 
other questions, many of which we sum up under the 
general term of the corporation question, the trust ques- 
tion. 

Nobody can fail to see, no matter how clearly you 
perceive the evils that have come upon the country by 
the use of them,—nobody can fail to see that modern 
business is going to be done by corporations. The old 
time of individual competition is probably gone by. It 


COLLEGE AND STATE A4II 


may come back; I don’t know; it will not come back 
within our time, I dare say. We will do business hence- 
forth when we do it on a great and successful scale, by 
means of corporations. But what we are afraid of, as 
we have said in the Sherman Act, is such use of cor- 
porations as will be in restraint of trade; that is, such 
use as will establish monopoly. Very well, we have got 
to know what particular things do establish monopoly; 
because if we merely say “this concern is so big that 
it looks to us like monopoly” that isn’t satisfactory. I 
am not afraid of any corporation, no matter how big. 
I am afraid of any corporation, however small, that is 
bad, that is rotten at the core, whose practices and 
actions are in restraint of trade. So that the thing we 
are after is not reckoning size in measuring capacity for 
damage, but measuring and comprehending the exact 
damage done. Very well, we are getting details. For 
example, in the Stanley investigation, in the investiga- 
tion connected with the trial of the meat packers, and in 
the investigation I hope will be pushed forward in con- 
nection with the so-called money trust (great applause) 
we are going to find out how the thing is done. 

For example, take the meat men, I have some friends 
connected in a subordinate way as employees of that 
great industry, some college men who are quick to see 
and intelligent to comprehend, and once or twice when I 
have made remarks that did not seem complimentary to 
the meat trust these gentlemen have written to me and 
asked if I was aware of the fact that the operations were 
as a matter of fact yielding this concern only a very 
minute fraction of profit, and there would be no profit 
in it at all if they didn’t command so large a proportion 
of the product as to make the sum total considerable. 
And I didn’t know what to say until I read the testimony 
taken in the trial of the meat packers at Chicago, and 
then I found out that these gentlemen buy cattle on the 
hoof, as everybody knows, and they charge up all the 
expenses of all their operations to the meat; and they 


& 


om 


412 COLLEGE AND STATE 


sell the hides and the hoofs, and the parts, whatever they 
may be, that yield very valuable glue, and all the by- 
products, which in their sum total are extremely profit- 
able, without any charges being entered against them in 
their books. So that we are paying for meat in order 
to enable them to sell hides and determine the price of 
shoes. (Applause.) Now that is a valuable inside piece 
of information. They can’t any longer impose upon us 
by showing us their books upon fresh meat (or meat 
that isn’t fresh that comes out of cold storage). ‘That 
is what I call one of the items in the bill of particulars. 
We know also by their own testimony it isn’t necessary 
for them to combine themselves in a corporation in 
order to fix prices; it is only necessary to have a gentle- 
man’s understanding, and have correspondence through 
a secretary agreed upon, and that this secretary, once 
every so often, shall send out a circular suggesting a 
price for meat, and this suggestion be taken kindly and 
acted upon. (Laughter.) That suggestion is perfectly 
arbitrary; they can establish the price of meat upon an 
absolutely non-competitive basis. 

Very well, we know what the meat packers are doing 
and what the steel men are doing, and what all these 
other men are doing. We have got now some of the 
transactions and the form in which they are carried 
through. It seems to me that now, therefore, we are 
ready to proceed to business, so far as we see what we 
are about. We are not going to lay about us in any 
blind and vague way, but we are going to do something 
like this, not proposing this as a measure but merely 
asan illustration. If you want to cure men of joy riding 
you won’t break up their automobiles, but catch the men 
that do the joy riding and see that these very useful and 
pleasant vehicles of our modern life are left for legiti- 
mate uses. If you want to stop joy riding in corpora- 
tions—for that is what is being done (laughter and 
applause )—you will not break up the corporations; we 
may need to use them; but you will break up the game, 


‘ | 
COLLEGE AND STATE rei 


namely, that use of corporations. I dare say the judges 
and other lawyers present,—if it is true that judges are 
still lawyers (laught@r) will agree with me that this 
is at any rate feasible; with the necessary legislation, we 
can say that a corporation, so long as it acts within its 
charter, or is within the limits of the law, is something 
we won't look inside of. We will regard it as long as 
it is within its legitimate uses as a body corporate that 
has its own separate entity, and into the details of whose 
organization we won't pry. We will hold it responsible 
so far only as a body, an unbroken body, but the 
minute somebody inside begins to*use it for purposes he 
has no right to use it for, then we are going to turn it 
inside out and see who is inside. And we are going to 
establish this principle that with regard to breaches of 
the law we will deal not with corporations but with indi- 
viduals, that we don’t know corporations, that we never 
heard of them, when we are dealing with breaches of 
the law. We can oblige every corporation to file with 
the proper officer of the law a sworn analysis of the way 
its business is done, which will be conclusive—not merely 
presumptive evidence—upon any trial, an analysis which 
it cannot controvert upon trial; which will show that 
such and such transactions are ordered by the president, 
such and such transactions are ordered by a committee 
of its board, certain other transactions are ordered by 
the board as a whole, others by its first vice-president, 
and so on down through the analysis. Then when a 
wrong is committed we will turn to the analysis and find 
the officer who according to that analysis ordered that 
particular thing done, and we will indict him not as an 
officer of the corporation but as an individual who used | 
that corporation for something that was illegal. Then 
you say, we will find out he was a dummy. Very well, 
go on, push the trial, draw in all the collateral evidence 
and find whose dummy he was, then amend the in- 
dictment and include the gentlemen whose dummy he 
was, whether it happens to be an official connected with 


414 COLLEGE AND STATE 


that corporation or not, because in this process we have 
nothing to do with corporations, we are finding men. 
You know the old cynical French maxim, when any man 
is running an incalculable course “‘cherchez la femme” 
(find the woman). Now we must establish the maxim 
“find the man.” Anything that is wrong must have 
originated with some person in particular. When you 
have found that person and given him a season to 
think it over in the penitentiary (applause) the thing 
will be stopped, and business will be relieved of the 
embarrassment of breaking up its organization in order 
to stop these practices. 

Do you see any other way to avoid interrupting the 
natural and normal processes of American business? 
If you will do this then all the prohibitions of your law 
will work, no man will use corporations in restraint of 
trade; and item by item we can put in our statutes what 
constitutes restraint of trade, not leaving it to courts for 
generalizations which may fit some cases and not others. 
Then we shall have a programme which need disturb no 
honest man, and will begin to see the map of the thing. 
I want to see the map of our corporate life. You don’t 
know the highways of it, you don’t know any of the 
intricacies of it. ‘The difficulty in this country is not alto- 
gether that we have big corporations, but that these 
big corporations are combined with one another, not 
by law, but by the fact that their directorates interlace 
in every direction and that the same combinations of 
men control the majority of the stock in corporation 
after corporation. 

No corporation can ever get big enough to make the 
Government of the United States afraid, but all of them 
combined might in some sinister and fateful day make 
the Government of the United States subserve them. So 
that you have got to disentangle this puzzle; you have 
got to find where the lines of personal responsibility 
interlace; you have got to lift these persons up and put 
them under cross-examination as to what they are doing 


COLLEGE AND STATE AIS 


with the business of the country, not for the purpose of 
gibbeting them, not for the purpose of putting them 
under contempt and mortifications, but for the purpose 
of saving the country and saving its business. 

I am not aware that I cherish in my heart any bitter 
feelings toward any individual concerned in these mat- 
ters. Many of these men do not see the consequences 
of the thing they are doing. ‘They are just as patriotic 
so far as they have examined their own consciences as 
either you or I. They don’t comprehend. We have got 
to wake them to the things that are to be feared, and 
then devise the particular methods by which they are to 
be corrected. We are not vindictive, but determined 
men, with open eyes. 

For in the meantime what is going on? When I 
hear gentlemen say that politics ought to let business 
alone, I feel like inviting them to first consider whether 
business is letting politics alone. It is a two-sided mat- 
ter; if you will quit, we will. If you will stop trying to 
determine elections by campaign contributions; if you 
will stop encouraging bi-partisan political machinery, so 
that it is worth your while to contribute to both cam- 
paign funds; if you will stop making the control of 
legislatures a business proposition, then you will find 
that in the most complete and only effectual way you 
have disentangled business from politics. 

The initial steps are taken in lobbies, they are not 
taken in the councils of statesmen; they are taken in 
those secret and whispered conferences that go on in 
almost every legislative lobby in this country, where 
men are shown that it is to their material interest— 
whether directly or indirectly—that they shall vote as 
interested parties desire them to vote. ‘These great 
leagues of business, in other words, are not merely 
leagues to command markets, but they are often also 
leagues to command legislation. 

And so the view widens, does it not? So the country 
is asking itself, who is represented in our representative 


416 COLLEGE AND STATE 


assemblies? In some states the people are represented, 
thank God, but in some states they are not represented. 
In some states the legislatures are secretly and privately 
controlled. Now, are you going to stir the blood of 
those people in those states by preaching a eulogy on 
representative institutions? If they have found out 
election after election that to vote one ticket or the 
other is to choose between tweedledum and tweedle- 
dee; if they know no matter how they vote things don’t 
get better at the State capital, how are you going to stir 
their patriotism with the tradition of the great repre- 
sentative institutions in this country? ‘They will laugh 
in your face, they will say: “Are you so young, so un- 
sophisticated as to suppose you know what you are 
talking about? Show us representative institutions to 
worship and we will be the first to fall on our knees, 
but we want to know who are represented.”’ 

There are two or three theories of government in this 
country. Don’t deceive yourself by supposing all the 
people in this country believe in democratic govern- 
ment, because they do not. You have only to listen to 
the utterances of very distinguished Republican speak- 
ers to see that they do not believe and do not pretend to 
believe in popular government. ‘They will tell you they 
do not believe the judgment of the people can be 
trusted. Are you going to take counsel from these gen- 
tlemen as to the preservation of our representative in- 
stitutions when they don’t want them to represent the 
great body, the rank and file of the people? I don’t 
know whether I was born so, or learned so, or what 
happened to me, but I know this, that the deepest con- 
viction I have, arising out of observation and experi- 
ence is this, that I would rather take the judgment of 
the rank and file than the judgment of the men who 
have become absorbed and successful as the leaders in 
great undertakings. (Applause. ) 

I want to ask these gentlemen this query: What sus- 
tains business in the United States? What is it that 


COLLEGE AND STATE 417 


makes the United States prosperous? Is it that we 
have great captains of industry? What would they 
do without the cunning and skill, the muscle and the 
indomitable aspiring hope of the American people? If 
these people were to find hope dying out of their hearts, 
they will be dumb-driven beasts, and your enterprises 
will fall for lack of the very breath that sustains them. 
(Applause. ) 

If you want to find whether a nation is prosperous or 
not, ask the men who are on the make what they hope 
and what they fear. Go to the country districts and 
ask anxious fathers who are looking for openings for 
their sons where they expect to get them in, where 
they find doors open and where they find doors shut. 
Go to the places where men are making earnings and 
see whether they dread or confidently look forward to 
the future, and then you will find whether America is 
waxing or waning, for if these men are confident, full 
cf hope, if they know they are going to have free 
chances, if they know that the doors of opportunity are 
open to them, if they know they are going to get fair 
treatment wherever they go, then America can conquer 
the world of enterprise by means of their hope. But if 
you find, what you do find, men everywhere asking 
themselves whether the doors of opportunity have not 
been locked in their faces, then you will have to take a 
new reckoning as to the future of America. 

What was it that they proposed to investigate in 
Congress the other day? Not a money trust in the 
ordinary sense that anybody is hiding or hoarding 
money anywhere. Men who have money are not fools 
enough not to want to use it, because it does not yield 
them anything if it is not used. What is suspected is 
this: that nobody can get large loans in this country to 
start those large enterprises by which alone our in- 
dustry thrives, unless he will consent to take certain 
gentlemen in with him who furnish the money; that 
the privileged circle is closed, and that while you can 


418 COLLEGE AND STATE 


get all the little credits you please in your local banks 
you can’t get your big credits where the reserves of the 
country are kept, except on the terms of the gentlemen 
who stand guard over these reserves. (Applause.) 
That is what is charged. And it is not charged with- 
out evidence. It is not charged without abundant evi- 
dence. Therefore, if only those who are chosen at the 
top have the right of way in, what is going to happen to 
America? Did you ever hear of a nation that was re- 
newed from the top? Did you ever hear of a nation 
that was not made virile, that did not account for its 
youth by renewal from the bottom? Did you ever 
hear of a tree that drew its sap from its flowers? Does 
it now draw it from the dark and silent places of the 
soil? Does not a nation draw its power of renewal 
and enterprise, and all its future, from the ranks of the 
great body of unnamed men? And if you are going to 
discourage these men; if you are going to put the chill 
of fear in their hearts, then American captains of in- 
dustry can whistle for their future, and they will whistle 
in a wilderness. (Applause.) 

I am the friend of American business, because I know 
where its foundations are laid, and where they are 
weak; and those foundations are solid only when laid 
in the confidence of the common people. (Great ap- 
plause. ) 

A Democrat? Why a man does not understand 
history who isn’t a Democrat. A man doesn’t under- 
stand enterprise who isn’t a Democrat. And let me tell 
you this: Democracy is not merely a matter of pro- 
grammes, it is a matter of sympathy and insight. It de- 
pends upon whether your heart is in connection with the 
great heart of the people or not. It does not depend 
upon whether you can cunningly devise a platform that 
looks firm and good or not. You can build a flimsy 
platform and stand on it successfully, provided its basis 
is in the right kind of spirit. It is a matter of seeing— 
not from your eyes out, but from the eyes of other men 


COLLEGE AND STATE 419 


in. Getting the vision that is in the back of the other 
man’s head is the thing; getting the hope that is the 
universal hope; getting that impulse that is the common 
human impulse, forward. This world has been swept by 
wave after wave of Democratic impulse. It is being 
swept by it now. The great waters are rising, rising, 
and nothing prevents their fertilizing the valleys ex- 
cept that stubborn, stupid stand-pat dam. (Great ap- 
plause. ) 

What fills my imagination, therefore, gentlemen, is 
this, that we are at the threshold of a great enterprise, 
the enterprise of retranslating the liberties of America 
into the terms of our lives as we now actually live them. 
The party that can do that first is the party that will 
rule this country for the next generation, and the party 
that misses it, that doesn’t do it, won’t rule it now and 
will never rule it. There are competitors. We aren't 
the only candidates in the field, we Democrats. Illumi- 
nation has penetrated the Republican ranks. You don’t 
describe a Republican by merely calling him a Republi- 
can. There are various kinds of Republicans; some of 
them are so attenuated in their doctrines that you can 
hardly recognize them as such, but all of them still 
stubbornly cling to that old name, for this reason—I 
believe in my heart this is the real reason—these men 
don’t come over and call themselves Democrats because 
they believe the Republican party is the only party that 
has shown practical genius in understanding and admin- 
istering the affairs of the Nation; that is the reason 
they claim the title. They say, yes, we agree with the 
Democrats but the Democrats don’t know how to do 
it. Yes, our programmes are the same, but do you sup- 
pose they know how to carry them out? That is the 
basis of it, and the deuce of it is that so much of the 
country agrees with them in it. They agree that they 
haven’t yet sufficient evidence that the Democrats know 
how to carry that programme out, or clearly know what 
the programme is. 


420 COLLEGE AND STATE 


When I sit down and compare my views with those of 
a Progressive Republican I can’t see what the difference 
’ is, except that he has a sort of pious feeling about the 
doctrine of protection, which I have never felt. (Ap- 
plause and laughter.) He will always insist, ‘Oh yes, I 
am a protectionist, but the tariff needs revision.”” Now, 
I don’t say anything about protection. I don’t care any- 
thing about protection. ‘The only thing I want to know 
is which duty and how much of a duty is serviceable to 
the country? ‘That is all I want to know. I don’t care 
a rap about the doctrine of protection. It isn’t a 
scientific doctrine; neither is the doctrine of free trade. 
But the administration of the government of a nation 
is a very practical thing, and we intend to do, without 
any feeling of regret or piety of any kind, that which 
is necessary to do for the promotion of the prosperity 
of the United States. That is all. (Applause.) 

Now they think that is profane. They say: “Just 
suppose I should vote the Democratic ticket, what 
- would the old man say?” I don’t like to say anything 
unparliamentary about the old man, but I would let the 
old man take care of himself and vote the way the coun- 
try seemed to demand in the year 1912 without refer- 
ence to what may have been thought to have been de- 
manded in the year 1846, for example; for I don’t 
happen to have shared any of the responsibilities of the 
year 1846, but I do happen to share some of the respon- 
sibility for the year 1912, and, therefore, it is that year, 
and that year alone, which at present interests me. 

Very well, then, we have got to show the Progressive 
Republican that he can come over without being 
ashamed of it and without being uneasy about the con- 
sequences. He is ready to come over if you will only 
give him polite language and the right sort of encour- 
agement and a hospitable reception. But try to push 
him over the line and he balks; he balks at the label. 
If you ask him why, he says, ‘“The Democratic Party 
hasn’t in the past stood for the things I believe in.” He 


COLLEGE AND STATE 421 


will assert, foolishly I think, but nevertheless he will 
assert it, that it has not been a sufficiently practical 
party. That is what he will tell you. That is why I 
am so intensely interested in having the country under- 
stand that we know what we are about, and mean to 
do those things we have specified. That will remove 
some obstacles, some questions. 

Mr. Louis Pettigrew, of Charleston, S. C., a very 
commanding figure of a past generation, was a man of 
humour, as well as force of character. He lost a case 
one day in court and his client followed him out of the 
court house and abused him for everything that was 
vile, called him a thief and a liar, but the old man didn’t 
pay any attention to him until he called him a Federalist ; 
then he knocked him down. Somebody asked him why 
he did that, and pointed out that that was the least 
offensive thing he had said. ‘Yes, damn him,’ he 
said, ‘‘but it was the only true thing he said.” (Laugh- 
ter.) 

Now I went quietly on my way with smiles from many . 
quarters, until on a certain day, in the city of Harris- 
burg, I happened to let it slip that I knew there was 
a corner incredit. I said that the most serious trust of 
all was the money trust. And I know that was so, be- 
cause it drew blood. ‘They hadn’t winced until then, 
and ever since then they have said, this man ought to 
be put out of business, and I dare say from their point 
of view he ought. I quite agree with them. Because if 
those things are true they must be stopped, but nobody 
need fear anything who is not implicated and engaged in 
them. Therefore, let every man who doesn’t want them 
touched stand up and get counted. It will shorten the 
process of identification later on. | 

When you get your specific programme, these gentle- 
men are going to balk. They are going to say you will 
destroy business. You are not going to destroy busi- 
ness, you are only going to break up monopoly of en- 
terprise, you will be letting in new men, new light, new 


422 COLLEGE AND STATE 


energy and new prospects of achievement. I am inter- 
ested in nothing so much as releasing the energy of the 
country. That, tomy mind, is the whole task of politics, 
to release the honest energy of the country. 

When I think over what we are engaged in doing in 
the field of politics, I conceive it this way, men who 
are behind any interest always unite in organization, 
and the danger in every country is that these special in- 
terests will be the only things organized, and that the 
common interest will be unorganized against them. 
* The business of government is to organize the common 
interest against the special interests. (Applause.) 
That is the reason it is worth while going around and 
trying to expound—no matter how imperfectly—what 
the situation is, so that you may draw these threads of 
common thought into one pattern, so that you may or- 
ganize the general mind for the comprehension of the 
situation. As soon as the common mind is organized 
then no special interest can hold its own against it. 

This is the thing to which we must challenge our- 
selves; this is the enterprise of the so-called radicalism 
of our time. If I am informed correctly as to the mean- 
ing of the word radical, it has something to do with 
roots. Now the false radical pulls up roots to see if 
the thing is growing; the true radical goes down to the 
roots to see that the soil is wholesome (applause) 
and that the tap-root is getting the pure nutriment that 
ought to come from the soil. That is the kind of radi- 
calism I believe in, recultivation, thence reformation of 
the whole process. 

In the presence of such things, gentlemen, what ought 
we to do? Why we ought, above all things else, to get 
together. (Great applause.) This is a national concep- 
tion, a national enterprise, a national opportunity and a 
national hope. Will any man dare thrust his individual 
ambition in the way? Will any man dare, because he 
would be the leader, say that unless he is the leader 
he will not codperate? Will any set of men say that 


COLLEGE AND STATE 423 


unless they can have their way in doing the thing they 
will not codperate? Ah, gentlemen, the stake is too 
big, the condemnation for failure is too overwhelming. 
We shall be judged for a generation as we act in 1912. 
If we allow ourselves to fall apart by reason of any 
jealousies, if we put any obstacle in the way of the uni- 
versal movement towards this happy goal, then all the 
rest of our lives we shall know that we made it im- 
possible for Democracy to have a fresh fruitage in 
America. 

And what would that mean? It would mean the old 
vision gone. It would mean that those old days were 
forever gone when men forgot their own fortunes in 
order to promote the common interest; those days gone 
by when America lifted her head so blithely and so 
bravely among the nations, and drew the gaze of man- 
kind to her own fair countenance; that this countenance 
now wears the mask of self-interest; that men find cov- 
ert behind it, and dare not display their passion for 
self-interest; and that America has taken the common 
road of the nations that go down because they have 
forgotten the destiny of man. (Great applause and 
ovation. ) 





WHAT JEFFERSON WOULD DO 


PART OF ADDRESS DELIVERED AT JEFFERSON DAY BAN- 
QUET, WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, NEW YORK, APRIL 
13, I912. FROM “THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,” 
62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, PP. 4747- 


4748. 


tists circumstances of our day are so utterly dif- 
ferent from those of Jefferson’s day that it may 
seem nothing less than an act of temerity to attempt to 
say what Jefferson would do if he were now alive and 
guiding us with his vision and command. The world we 
live in no longer divided into neighbourhoods and com- 
munities; the lines of the telegraph thread it like nerves 
uniting a single organism. The ends of the earth touch 
one another and exchange impulse and purpose. Amer- 
ica has swung out of her one-time isolation and has 
joined the family of nations. She is linked to mankind by 
every tie of blood and circumstance. She is more cos- 
mopolitan in her make-up than any other nation of the 
world; is enriched by a greater variety of energy drawn 
from strong peoples the world over. She is not the sim- 
ple, homogeneous, rural nation that she was in Jeffer- 
son’s time, making only a beginning at development and 
the conquest of fortune; she is great and strong; above 
all she is infinitely varied; her affairs are shot through 
with emotion and the passion that comes with strength 
and growth and self-confidence. We live in a new and 
strange age and reckon with new affairs alike in 
economics and politics of which Jefferson knew nothing. 

And yet we may remind ourselves that Jefferson’s 
mind did not move in a world of narrow circumstances; 

424 


COLLEGE AND STATE 425 


it did not confine itself to the conditions of a single race 
or a single continent. It had commerce with the 
thought of men old and new; it had moved in an age of 
ample air, in which men thought not only of nations 
but of mankind, in which they saw not only individual 
policies, but a great field of human need and of human 
fortune. Neither did he think in abstract terms, as did 
the men with whom he had had such stimulating com- 
merce of thought in France. His thought was not specu- 
lation; it was the large generalization that comes from 
actual observation and experience. He had had contact 
with plain men of many kinds, as well as with philoso- 
phers and foreign statesmen. He thought in a way that 
his neighbours in Virginia could understand, in a way 
which illuminated their own lives and ambitions for 
them. And though he was deemed a philosopher, he 
was nevertheless the idol of the people, for he somehow 
heard and voiced what they themselves could have said 
and purposed and conceived. For all the largeness of 
his thought, it was bathed in an everyday atmosphere; 
it belongs to the actual, workaday world; it has its feet 
firmly on circumstances and fact and the footing all 
men are accustomed to who reflect at all on their lives 
and the lives of their neighbours and compatriots. He 
was holding up for the illumination of the things of 
which he spoke a light which he had received out of the 
hands of old philosophers. But the rays of that light 
as he held it fell upon actual American life; they did 
not lose themselves vaguely in space; they were for the 
guidance of men’s feet every day. 

We may be sure, therefore, that had Jefferson lived 
in our time he would have acted upon the facts as they 
are. In the first place, because he would have seen them 
as they actually are, and in the second place because he 
would have been interested in theory only as he could 
adjust it to the reality of the life about him. He would 
not have been content with a philosophy which he 
could fit together only within the walls of his study. 


426 COLLEGE AND STATE 


To determine what Jefferson would have done, 
therefore, requires only that we should ourselves clearly 
see the facts of our time as they are, whether in the field 
of government or in the field of our economic life, and 
_that we should see how Jefterson’s principle of the rule 
and authority of the people stands related to these 
facts. We are constantly quoting Jefferson’s funda- 
mental thought: it was that no policy could last 
whose foundation is narrow, based upon the privileges 
and authority of a few, but that its foundations must be 
as broad as the interests of all the men and families and 
neighbourhoods that live under it. Monopoly, private 
control, the authority of privilege, the concealed mas- 
tery of a few men cunning enough to rule without show- 
ing their power—he would have at once announced 
them rank weeds which were sure to choke out all whole- 
some life in the fair garden of affairs. If we can detect 
these things in our time; if we can see them and describe 
them and touch them as they are, then we know what 
Jefferson would have done. He would have moved 
against them, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, 
sometimes openly, sometimes subtly; but whether he 
merely mined about them or struck directly at them, he 
would have set systematic war against them at the 
front of all his purpose. 

As regards the real influences that control our Goy- 
ernment, he would have asked first of all: Are they de- 
termined by the direct and open contacts of opinion? 
He would have found that they were not; that, on the 
contrary, our Government as it has developed has sup- 
plied secret influences with a hundred coverts and am- 
bushes; that the opinion of the Nation makes little 
noise in the committee rooms of legislatures; that it 
is certain large, special interests and not the people who 
maintain the lobby; that the argument of the lobby is 
oftentimes louder and more potent than the argument 
of the hustings and the floor of the representative body. 
He would have found, moreover, that until very recent 


COLLEGE AND STATE AQ 


years opinion had had very difficult access, if any at 
all, in most seasons, of the private conferences in which 
candidates for office were chosen, candidates for both 
administrative and legislative office, and that in the 
private conferences where it was determined who should 
be nominated and, therefore, of course, who should be 
elected, the same influences had established themselves 
which ruled in the legislative lobby. That money, the 
money that kept the whole organization together, 
flowed in, not from the general body of the people, but 
from those who wished to determine in their own private 
interest what governors and legislators should and 
should not do. 

It is plain in such circumstances what he would 
have insisted, as we are insisting now, that if there 
could be found no means by which the authority and 
purpose of the people could break into these private 
places and establish their rule again, if the jungle proved 
too thick for the common thought to explore, if the 
coverts where the real power lurked were too difficult to 
find, the forces of genuine democracy must move around 
them instead of through them, must surround and be- 
leaguer them, must establish a force outside of them 
by which they can be dominated or overawed. It is with 
the discussion of just such affairs that the public mind 
is now preoccupied and engrossed. Debate is busy 
with them from one end of the land to the other. 

As regards the economic policy of the country it 
is perfectly plain that Mr. Jefferson would have insisted 
upon a tariff fitted to actual conditions, by which he 
would have meant not the interests of the few men 
who find access to the hearings of the Ways and Means 
Committee of the House and the Finance Committee of 
the Senate, but the interests of the business men and 
manufacturers and farmers and workers and profes- 
sional men of every kind and class. He would have in- 
sisted that the schedules should be turned wrong side out 
and every item of their contents subjected to the 


428 COLLEGE AND STATE 


general scrutiny of all concerned. It is plain, also, that 
he would have insisted upon a currency system elastic, 
indeed, and suited to the varying circumstances of the 
money market in a great industrial and trading Nation, 
but absolutely fortified and secured against a central 
control, the influence of coteries, and leagues of banks 
to which it is now in constant danger of being subjected. 
He would have known that the currency question is not 
only an economic question but a political question, and 
that, above all things else, control must be in the hands 
of those who represent the general interest and not in 
the hands of those who represent the things we are 
seeking to guard against. 

In the general field of business his thought would, 
of course, have gone about to establish freedom, to 
throw business opportunity open at every point to new 
men, to destroy the processes of monopoly, to exclude 
the poison of special favours, to see that, whether big or 
little, business was not dominated by anything but the 
law itself, and that that law was made in the interest of 
plain, unprivileged men everywhere. 

Jefferson’s principles are sources of light because 
' they are not made up of pure reason, but spring out of 
aspiration, impulse, vision, sympathy. They burn with 
the fervour of the heart; they wear the light of inter- 
pretation he sought to speak in, the authentic terms of 
honest, human ambition. And the law in his mind was 
the guardian of all legitimate ambition. It was the 
great umpire standing by to see that the game was hon- 
ourably and fairly played in the spirit of generous 
rivalry and open the field free to every sportsmanlike 
contestant. 

Constitutions are not inventions. They do not 
create our liberty. They are rooted in life, in fact, 
in circumstance, in environment. They are not the con- 
dition of our liberty but its expression. They result 
from our life; they do not create it. And so there beats 
in them always, if they live at all, this pulse of the large 


COLLEGE AND STATE 429 


life of humanity. As they yield and answer to that they 
are perfected and exalted. 

Indeed, the whole spirit of government is the spirit 
of men of every kind banded together in a generous 
combination seeking the common good. Nations are 
exalted, parties are made great as they partake of this 
aspiration and are permitted to see this vision of the 
Nation. as a whole struggling toward a common ideal 
and a common hope. 

We as Democrats are particularly bound at this 
season of expectation, and of confidence to remember 
that it is only in this spirit and with this vision that we 
can ever serve either the Nation or ourselves. As we 
approach the time when we are to pick out a Presi- 
dent—for I believe that is to be our privilege—we 
should fix our thought on this one great fact, that no 
man is big enough or great enough to be President 
alone. He will be no stronger than his party. His 
strength will lie in the counsel of his comrades. Huis 
success will spring out of the union and energy and un- 
selfish codperation of his party, and his party must be 
more than half the Nation. It must include, and genu- 
inely include, men of every class and race and disposi- 
tion. If he be indeed the representative of his people, 
there may be vouchsafed to him through them some- 
thing of the vision to conceive what Jefferson conceived 
and understood—how the vision may be carried into 
reality, 





GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO 
BUSINESS 


ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE ECO- 
NOMIC CLUB IN THE HOTEL ASTOR, NEW YORK 
CITY, MAY 23, 1912. FROM “‘THE CONGRESSIONAL 
RECORD,’ 62D CONGRESS, 2D SESSION, VOL. XLVIII, 
APPENDIX, 392-396. 


R. PRESIDENT, ladies and gentlemen: I lis- 
tened with a great deal of interest to the very 
gracious introduction that you have just heard, but 
with some skepticism upon one of the statements. Mr. 
Milburn said that everybody here knew what I am, but 
that depends upon which newspaper he has read. Most 
persons are so thoroughly uninformed as to my opinions 
that I have concluded that the only things they have 
not read are my speeches. 

But I want to say that it is with a great deal of 
pleasure that I find myself here to-night, turning out of 
the troubled paths of practical politics to come into a 
place where you have the purpose and the appearance of 
deliberation. [Applause.] I have never believed en- 
tirely that there was very much thinking upon general 
public questions done in the city of New York; not be- 
cause there are not some of the finest thinking machines 
in New York that are to be found anywhere, but be- 
cause the brains of New York are so devoted throughout 
long days to special undertakings that there is only the 
evening, when fatigue has conquered you, in which to 
think about the affairs of the country. And, therefore, 
it seems to me that men of eminent success in the fields 
of business are, above all others, under a moral obliga- 
tion to get together and talk of things which do not 

430 


COLLEGE AND STATE 431 


concern their own private undertakings. It is re- 
freshing at this particular time to have an opportunity 
to discuss not personalities but the questions of the day. 
[Applause.] I was in a New England city, not many 
weeks ago, which had just been visited on the two 
preceding days by two militant candidates for nomina- 
tion. I had occasion at the opening of my speech to say: 
“After what you people have been through the last two 
days perhaps you would like to know what the questions 
of the day are.’ I was interested to find that instead 
of a mere smile I got out of that audience that had 
dropped in from the street a spontaneous cheer. They 
felt refreshed at the idea that they might hear some- 
thing discussed which did not have the bitterness of per- 
sonality in it. 

And yet, it is a serious fact, ladies and gentlemen, that 
it is very difficult to discuss those very questions of the 
day without seeming to bring a touch of passion and bit- 
terness into them. We talk a great deal about the radi- 
calism of our time, but the radicalism, if you will 
analyze it, does not consist in the things that are pro- 
posed, but in the things that are disclosed. It is in the 
analysis of existing conditions that your public speakers 
seem to be radical. How shall our difficulties be settled 
after we have excited our minds by disclosing those con- 
ditions? We are so busy with the preliminary con- 
troversy with regard to what the real state of the facts 
is that we carry that extreme over into the other area, 
which should be an area of calmness, of deliberation, 
namely, the area of the discussion of what shall be done 
in the circumstances. 

Very little has been said about that, but a great deal 
has been said, and sometimes intemperately said, about 
the real state of affairs. Nowhere, it seems to me, in 
the country more than in New York ought we to be very 
frank with one another, because in New York, taking 
you in the aggregate, you know what the facts are, and 
if you are frank with one another and take the public 


432 COLLEGE AND STATE 


into your confidence you may be instrumental in instruct- 
ing the country concerning what it must found its 
thoughts upon. 

When you discuss the relation between government 
and business, you touch at once the seat of irritation. 
I have not found a single audience in this vicinity in 
which the business men were not up in arms at being in- 
terfered with by the action of the Government—in 
which they were not to be found a great many men who 
said, “If the politicians would only let us alone the 
country would prosper and all business would settle 
down to a sound and steady condition.” ‘They have 
been critics of Government because Government would 
not let business rest and be free. Now, no study of the 
history of the Government can be candidly made which 
will not lead to this conclusion—that the very thing that 
Government cannot let alone is business, for business 
underlies every part of our life; the foundation of our 
lives, of our spiritual lives included, is economic. 

I heard a very interesting preacher say several 
months ago, in preaching upon the sequence of the peti- 
tions in the Lord’s Prayer, that it was significant that 
our Saviour’s first petition was, ‘‘Give us this day our 
daily bread,” for no man can rationally live, worship, or 
love his neighbour on an empty stomach; and if he is 
in doubt where the food is to come from, if he fears he 
will be without work and sustenance, it is impossible 
that he should have a rational attitude toward the life 
of the community or toward his own life. Therefore 
it is the object of Government to make those adjust- 
ments of life which will put every man in a position to 
claim his normal rights as a living human being. 

Government cannot take its hand off of business. 
Government must regulate business, because that is the 
foundation of every other relationship, particularly of 
the political relationship. It is futile, therefore, to 
have the politicians take their hands off. They may 
blunder at the business, but they cannot give it up. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 433 


They may make fundamental mistakes—they will make 
a great many if you do not frankly assist and instruct 
them—but they must go forward whether instructed or 
not. 

I think one of the few grounds of discouragement in 
our days—for I do not think there are many—is that 
business men and the lawyers who guide business men 
are jealously withholding their counsel from those who 
try to guide affairs, withholding it as those who with- 
draw in suspicion, as if they should say, ‘‘We cannot 
parley with those men; their ears are not candidly open 
to us’’; and so there has grown up on one side and on 
the other an attitude of distrust which does not augur 
well for a settlement of delicate questions. 

The whole problem of our life, gentlemen, is to un- 
derstand one another, the whole problem of politics is 
to get together. Politics is not a mechanical problem, | 
politics is not a problem of setting interests off against 
each other upon such a plan as that one cannot harm 
the other. ‘The problem of politics is codperation. 
The organic codperation of the parts is the only basis 
for just Government; unless we come to an understand- 
ing, there can be no Government. No man can hold off 
from affairs and count himself a faithful citizen of the . 
Republic. 

I have been interested in one piece of speculative ex- 
planation which, perhaps, I might turn aside for a mo- 
ment to call to your attention. 

One of the chief benefits I used to derive from being 
president of a university was that I had the pleasure of 
entertaining thoughtful men from all over the world. I 
cannot tell you how much dropped into my granary by 
their presence. I had been casting around in my 
thought for something by which to draw several parts 
of my political ideas together when it was my good 
fortune to entertain a very interesting Scotchman who 
had been devoting himself to the philosophical thought 
of the seventeenth century. His talk was so engaging 


434 COLLEGE AND STATE 


that it was delightful to hear him speak of anything, 
and presently there came out of the unexpected region 
of his thought the thing I had been waiting for. He 
called my attention to the fact that in every generation 
all sorts of speculation and thinking tend to fall under 
the formula of the dominant thought of the age that 
has preceded that. 

For example, after the Newtonian theory of the unt- 
verse had been developed, almost all thinking tended to 
express itself upon the analogies of the Newtonian the- 
- ory, and since the Darwinian theory has reigned 
amongst us everybody tries to express what he wishes 
to expound in the terms of development and accommo- 
dation to environment. Now, it came to me as this 
interesting man talked, that the Constitution of the 
United States had been made under the dominion of 
the Newtonian theory. You have only to read the 
papers of the Federalist to see it written on every page. 
They speak of the ‘‘checks and balances”’ of the Consti- 
tution and use to express their idea the simile of the 
organization of the universe, and particularly of the 
solar system—how by the attraction of gravitation the 
various parts are held in their orbits, and represent 
Congress, the judiciary, and the President as a sort of 
' imitation of the solar system. | 

No Government, of course, is a mechanism; no 
mechanical theory will fit any Government in the world, 
because Governments are made up of human beings, and 
all the calculations of mechanical theory are thrown 
out of adjustment by the intervention of the human 
will. Society is an organism, and every Government 
must develop according to its organic forces and in- 
stincts. I do not wish to make the analysis tedious; I 
will merely ask you, after you go home, to think over 
this proposition; that what we have been witnessing for 
the past hundred years is the transformation of a New- 
tonian constitution into a Darwinian constitution. [Ap- 
plause.] The place where the strongest will is present 


COLLEGE AND STATE 435 


will be the seat of sovereignty. If the strongest will is 
present in Congress, then Congress will dominate the 
Government; if the strongest guiding will is in the Presi- 
dency, the President will dominate the Government; if 
a leading and conceiving mind like Marshall’s presides 
over the Supreme Court of the United States, he will 
frame the Government, as he did. There are no checks 
and balances in the mechanical sense in the Constitution; 
historical circumstances have determined the character 
of our Government. While we were forming the Gov- 
ernment—that is to say, down to a hundred years ago, 
when the War of 1812 was being fought, while we were 
finding our place among the nations of the world, while 
our most critical relations were over foreign relations— 
the Presidency necessarily stood at the front of affairs. | 
You will find all the early Presidents directly forming the 
Government. But after we got our standing among the 
peoples of the world—from the close of the War of 
1912 down to the beginning of the Spanish-American 
War, with the exception of the interval of the Civil 
War—the Presidents count for very little. There was 
then a free, miscellaneous domestic development that 
was insusceptible of guidance; it was spontaneous; it 
sprang up unbidden in every part of the country; the 
place of common counsel was the Congress of the United 
States; and the Congress overshadowed the President. 

One of the things I have always felt that Webster 
and Clay did not see was that they would diminish their 
prestige and power if they left the Senate of the United 
States and entered the Presidency. Why the men who 
were leading the Chamber that was dominating the 
Nation should have wished to be in the chair which was 
overshadowed by that Chamber I have never been able 
to understand. 

But then came the Spanish-American War. Since 
then America has stood up, looked about her, drawn the 
veil of preoccupation from her eyes, and beheld herself 
a great power among the peoples of the world; and ever 


436 COLLEGE AND STATE 


since that moment the President has, of necessity, be- 
come the guiding force in the affairs of the country. It 
was inevitable, and it now will, no doubt, remain in- 
evitable because we are now in the same case with all 
other Governments. We cannot shut our eyes to for- 
eign questions—particularly now when we see some 
prospect of breaking our isolation by lowering the tariff 
wall between us and other nations; now that we see 
some possibility of flinging our own flag out upon the 
seas again [applause] and taking possession of our 
rightful share of the trade of the world. 

We have found that the private debates of com- 
mittees and the haphazard creations of legislation in 
bodies which no one leads do not suffice to clear our 
affairs. We must have some central points of guidance. 
This is the adjustment to environment; this is the Dar- 
winization of the Government of the United States. 
There is no violence in the process; there is no violence 
to any principle of our Constitution; because, as has 
been said so often, the beauty of that Constitution is that 
it did not predict anything, but left everything possible 
by the very simplicity and elasticity of its make-up. If 
the Constitution of the United States had gone into 
the detail that some of our State constitutions go into, 
we would have to change it every 10 years, on the aver- 
age, as we have changed them. 

Now, all of this that seems pertinent to the matter 
which I would now bring to your attention is that there 
must be some guiding and adjusting force—some single 
organ of intelligent communication between the whole 
Nation and the Government which determines the policy 
of that Nation. And, inasmuch as that determination 
must turn upon economics—that is to say, upon business 
questions—it is absolutely necessary that we should 
analyze our present situation with regard to nothing 
but the facts. 

Perhaps I may sum my idea up in this way: The ques- 
tion of statesmanship is a question of taking all the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 437 


economic interests of every part of the country into the 
reckoning. Every time any change is to be made in 
economic policies it must be made by an all-around 
accommodation and adjustment. Is that possible? 
There is no man, there is no group of men, who compre- 
hend the entire business interests of this country; it 
is inconceivable that there should be. At best we can 
make a very rough and ready approximation of it; and 
in order that you may make even an approximation, it 
is necessary that there should be a free play of opinion 
from every part of the country upon the sensitive centre 
at Washington. Just as soon as one part begins to 
press harder than another, then the prospect of justice 
is uncertain, the task of statesmanship is rendered just 
so much the more difficult. All the sensitive parts of 
the Government ought to be open to all the active parts 
of it. So soon as a small group of the active parts 
organize for the purpose of seeing to it that the Gov- 
ernment hears and heeds only them, then the task 
becomes impossible. 

Let me illustrate it by the tariff, because every busi- 
ness question in this country, whether you think so or 
not, gentlemen, comes back, no matter how much you 
put on the brakes, to the question of the tariff. 

I hear on every side that the tariff was the ‘‘domin- 
ant’? issue. Why, you cannot escape from it no matter . 
in which direction you go. ‘The tariff is situated in 
relation to other questions like Boston Common in the 
old arrangement of that interesting city. I remember 
seeing once, in Life, a picture of a man standing at the 
door of one of the railway stations of Boston and 
inquiring of a Bostonian the way to the Common. ‘Take 
any of these streets,’’ was the reply, ‘‘either direction.” 
Now, as the Common was related to the former wind- 
ing streets of Boston, so the tariff question is related 
to the economic questions of our day. ‘Take any direc- 
tion and you will sooner or later get to the Common. 


438 COLLEGE AND STATE 


In discussing the tariff, you may start at the centre and 
can go in any direction you please. 

Let us illustrate by standing at the centre, the Com- 
mon itself. You know as far back as 1828, when they 
did not know anything about politics as compared with 
what we know now, a tariff bill was passed which was 
called the “‘tariff of abominations,” because it did not 
have any beginning or end or plan. It had no traceable 
pattern in it. It was as if the demands of everybody 
in the United States had all been thrown indiscriminately 
into one basket and that basket presented as a piece of 
legislation. It has been a general scramble, and every- 
body who scrambled hard enough had been taken care 
of in the tariff schedules resulting. It was an abomi- 
nable thing to the thoughtful men of that day, because 
no man guided it, shaped it, or tried to make an equitable 
system out of it. That was bad enough, but at least 
everybody had an open door through which to scramble 
for his advantage. It was a go-as-you please, free-for- 
everybody struggle, and anybody who could get to 
Washington and say he represented an important busi- 
ness interest could be heard by the Committee on Ways 
and Means. We have a very different state of affairs 
now. The Committee on Ways and Means and the 
Finance Committee of the Senate discriminate by long 
experience among the persons whose counsel they are 
to take in respect to tariff legislation, because there has 
been substituted for this unschooled body of citizens that 
used to clamour at the doors of the Finance Committee 
and the Committee on Ways and Means one of the 
most interesting and able bodies of expert lobbyists 
that has ever been developed in the experience of any 
countrymen, who know so much about the matters they 
are talking of that you cannot put your knowledge into 
competition with theirs. Because they overwhelm you 
with their knowledge of detail you cannot discover 
wherein their scheme lies. They suggest the change of 
a fraction in a particular schedule and explain it to 


COLLEGE AND STATE 439 


you so plausibly that you cannot see that it means 
millions of dollars additional for the consumer of this 
country. Again they propose to put the carbon in 
our electric light in 2-foot pieces instead of 1-foot 
pieces and you do not see where you are getting sold, 
because you are not an expert and they are. They 
have calculated the whole thing beforehand; they have 
analyzed the whole detail and consequences, each one 
in his specialty. As compared with him the average 
unschooled, inexperienced business man has no pos- 
sibility of competition. Instead of the old scramble, 
which was bad enough, you got the present expert ~ 
control of the tariff schedules. ‘hus the relation be- 
tween business and Government becomes not a matter 
of the exposure of all the sensitive parts of the Govern- 
ment to all the active parts of the people, but the special 
impression upon them of a particular organized force 
in the business world; moreover, so far as deliberation 
is concerned, its action, its motions, its actual purposes 
are secret. Why, it is notorious, for example, that many 
members of the Finance Committee of the Senate did 
not know the significance of the tariff schedules which 
were reported in the present tariff bill to the Senate, 
and members of the Senate who asked Mr. Aldrich 
direct questions for information were refused the in- 
formation they sought, sometimes, I dare say, because 
he could not give it, and sometimes, I venture to say, 
because disclosure of the information would have em- 
barrassed the passage of the measure. There were 
essential papers which could not be got at. Take that 
very interesting matter, that will-o’-the-wisp, known 
as ‘“‘the cost of production.” It is hard for any man 
who has ever studied economics at all to restrain a 
cynical smile when he is told that an intelligent body 
of his fellow-citizens are looking for “the cost of pro- 
duction” as a basis for tariff legislation. It is not the 
same in any one factory for two years together. It is 
not the same in one industry from one season to another. 


440 COLLEGE AND STATE 


It is not the same in one country at'two different periods. 
It is constantly eluding your grasp. It does not exist 
as a scientific, demonstrable datum fact. But in order 
to carry out the extraordinary programme proposed in 
the late national platform of the Republican party it 
was necessary to go through the motions of finding out 
what it was. I am credibly informed that the Govern- 
ment of the United States requested several foreign 
Governments, among others the Government of Ger- 
many, to supply it with as reliable figures as possible 
concerning the cost of producing certain articles corre- 
sponding with those produced in the United States. 
The German Government, I understand, put the matter 
in the hands of certain of her manufacturers, who 
sent in just as complete answers as they could procure 
from their books. The information reached our Goy- 
ernment during the course of the debate on the Payne- 
Aldrich bill and was transmitted—for the bill by that 
time had reached the Senate—to the Finance Committee 
of the Senate. But I am told—and I have no reason 
to doubt it—that it never came out of the pigeonholes 
of the committee. I do not know and that committee 
does not know what the information it contained was. 
When Mr. Aldrich was asked about it he first said it 
was not an official report from the German Government. 
Afterwards he said it was an impudent attempt on the 
part of the German Government to interfere with 
tariff legislation in the United States. But he never 
said what the cost of production disclosed by it was. 
If he had, it is more than likely that some of the tariff 
schedules would have been shown to be entirely unjus- 
tifiable. 

Such instances show you just where the centre of 
gravity is—and it is a matter of gravity indeed, for it 
is a very grave matter. It lay during the last Congress 
in the one person who was the accomplished intermedi- 
ary between the expert lobbyists and the legislation of 
Congress. I am not saying this in derogation of the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 441 


character of Mr. Aldrich. It is no concern of mine 
what kind of man Mr. Aldrich is. Now, particularly, 
that he has retired from public life, it is a matter of 
indifference. ‘The point is that he, because of his long 
experience, his long handling of these delicate and 
private matters, was the usual and natural instrument 
by which the Congress of the United States informed 
itself, not as to the wishes of the people of the United 
States or of the rank and file of business men of the 
country, but as to the needs and arguments of the ex- 
perts who came to arrange matters with the committees. 

The moral of the whole matter is this: The business 
of the United States is not as a whole in contact with . 
the Government of the United States. So soon as it is 
the matters which now give you, and justly give you, 
cause for uneasiness will disappear. Just so soon as the 
business of this country has general, free, welcome access 
to the councils of Congress, all the friction between 
business and politics will disappear. | 

There is another matter to which you must direct your 
attention, whether palatable or not. I donot talk about 
these things because they please my palate; I do not 
talk about them because I want to attack anybody or 
upset anyone; I talk about them because I wish to find 
out what the facts are; otherwise I will move like a man 
groping in darkness. If what I say is not true, then I 
am susceptible of correction. 

You will notice from a recent investigation that things 
like this take place: A certain bank invests in certain 
securities. It appears from the evidence that the han- 
dling of these securities was very intimately connected 
with the maintenance of the price of a particular com- 
modity. Nobody ought, and in normal circumstances 
nobody would, for a moment think of suspecting the 
managers of a great bank of making such an investment 
in order to help those who were conducting a particular 
business in the United States to maintain the price of 
their commodity; but the circumstances are not normal. 


442 COLLEGE AND STATE 


It is beginning to be believed that in the big business 
of this country nothing is disconnected from anything 
else. I do not mean in this particular instance to which 
I have referred and have in mind to draw any inference 
at all, for that would be unjust; but take any invest- 
ment of an industrial character by a great bank. It is 
known that the directorate of that bank interlaces in 
personnel with 10, 20, 30, 40, 60 boards of directors of 
all sorts of railroads which handle commodities, of 
great groups of manufacturers which manufacture com- 
modities, and of great merchants that distribute com- 
modities; and the reason that a bank is under suspicion 
with regard to its investments is that it is at least con- 
sidered possible it is playing the game of somebody who 
has nothing to do with banking, but with whom some 
of its directors are connected and joined in interest. 
The ground of unrest and uneasiness, in short, on the 
part of the public at large is the growing knowledge that 
many large undertakings are interlaced with one an- 
other, indistinguishable from one another in personnel. 

Therefore, when a small group of men approach Con- 
gress in order to induce the committee concerned to 
concur in certain legislation, nobody knows the ramifica- 
tions of the interests which those men represent, and 
therefore it is not the frank and open action of public 
opinion in public counsel, but every man is at any rate 
. suspected of representing some other man and it is not 
known where the connection ceases. ‘The whole ques- 
tion, therefore, with regard to the relation of govern- 
ment to business is this, gentlemen, not whether there 
should be a connection, not whether economic legislation 
should be carefully, studiously, prudently considered, but 
through whom is the connection to be maintained? Are 
the contacts to be general or special? Are they to be 
in the nature of general public opinion or in the nature 
of private control? 

I am one of those who have been so fortunately cir- 
cumstanced that I have had the opportunity to study 


COLLEGE AND STATE 443 


the way in which these things come about and therefore 
I do not suspect any man has deliberately planned these 
things. I am not so uninstructed and misinformed as 
to suppose that there is a malevolent combination some- 
where to dominate the Government of the United States. 
I merely say that by certain processes, now well known, 
and perhaps natural in themselves, there has come about 
so extraordinary a concentration in the control of busi- 
ness in this country that the people are afraid that there - 
will be a concentration in the control of government. 
That either is so or is not. If it is so, I beg you to 
observe that I am not a radical in frankly stating it. 
If it is not so, then I am desirous of your codperation 
in order that I may be better informed; for I hold my 
mind open to every kind of information that I can get; 
and I have sense enough to know that no one man 
understands the United States. 

I have met some gentlemen who professed they did. 
I have even met some business men who professed they 
held in their own single comprehension the business of 
the United States; but I am educated enough to know 
that they do not. Education has this useful effect, that 
it narrows of necessity the circles of one’s egotism. No 
student knows his subject. The most he knows is where 
and how to find out the things he does not know with 
regard to it. That is.also the position of a states- 
man. No statesman understands the whole country. 
He should make it his business to find out where he will 
get the information to understand at least a part of it 
at a time when dealing with complex affairs. What we 
need more than anything else, therefore, is experience 
meetings, like this—a universal revival of common coun- 
sel. That is what investigations by Congress are for. 
I do not understand their primary object to be to get 
anybody in jail or, if it be to find out which men ought 
to be in jail and which ought not, it is with the confident 
expectation that it will be discovered that the vast ma- 
jority ought not to be. But the majority are under 


444 COLLEGE AND STATE 


suspicion until it is discovered who the minority are 
who ought to be in jail. No man could even get through 
a highly reputable company like this without investiga- 
tion and put his finger on the innocent men. Not until 
everything about you is known is it possible to separate 
the sheep from the goats; but I have a confident expecta- 
tion that the majority of the sheep would be enormous 
and it would not be necessary to shear them. 

You remember it was told of a certain United States 
Senator that he was so cautious in his statements that he 
was the despair of every newspaper reporter who sought 
to interview him. On one occasion he was on a train 
which was passing through a grazing country and saw 
a flock of sheep in the field. It was rather late in the 
season. One of his companions remarked, ‘“That is very 
singular, those sheep are not sheared yet.’’ The Sena- 
tor answered, ‘“‘So it would appear, looking at them 
from this side.” 

Now, the shearing time has not come in the great 
matter we speak of, and I do not think it will come; 
but the time has come to determine who are responsible 
for the things that ought not to be done, who are to be 
set free to do as they please, for that is the problem 
of honest business and right politics. The problem of 
politics is, who should be restrained and who should not; 
and the problem of business is, who should be restrained 
and who should not. ‘The whole analysis of modern 
conditions is a discussion of control. Do not get im- 
patient, therefore, gentlemen, with those who go about 
preaching ‘“‘We must return to the rule of the people.” 
All they mean, if they mean anything rational, is that 
we must consent to let a majority into the game. We 
must not permit any system to go uncorrected which is 
based upon private understandings and expert testi- 
mony; we must not allow the few to determine what the 
policy of the country is to be. It is a question of access 
- to our own Government. There are very few men with- 
in the sound of my voice who have any real access to the 


COLLEGE AND STATE 445 


Government of the United States. It is a matter of 
common counsel; it is a matter of united counsel; it is 
a matter of mutual comprehension; it is a matter of 
mutual understanding. 

I wish these matters could be more discussed, but it 
is very difficult to discuss them nowadays; there is too 
much noise in the air. I feel nowadays, not in gather- 
ings like this, but in gatherings of the ordinary sort, 
very much as I felt at a certain county fair. The grand 
stand by the race track was set back from the track, 
I suppose 50 feet, and a speaker’s stand had been erected 
just in front of it, opposite the little pagoda where the 
judges of races stood; and I was put up to address the 
grand stand. Just back of the grand stand there was a 
most obstreperous hurdy-gurdy accompanying the giddy 
motions of a merry-go-round, and while I was trying 
with my voice to compete with that they started a horse 
race behind my back. Not having the attention of the 
grand stand, I did what any normal man would have 
done: I stopped and watched the horse race. That is 
an allegory with regard to our present situation. It 
is very difficult to address the grand stand, and I am 
glad I got you off in a corner. 

But what is at stake? That is what makes a man’s 
thought infinitely sober, and sometimes touches it with 
a certain degree of sadness. What is at stake in this 
business? Why, nothing less than the content, the hope, 
and the life of the people of this country. Say what 
you please, the real basis of disturbance in the field of 
business just now is the suspicion of the great body of 
people in the United States concerning the methods and 
combinations of business; and business cannot breathe 
an atmosphere of suspicion and live. You must, at any 
risk, remove that suspicion, or else there can be no 
normal business in the United States. 

What is that suspicion based upon? It is not a con- 
test between the men now in control of business and the 
men now in control of the Government of the United 


446 COLLEGE AND STATE 


States. It is a contest between those men and the nor- 
mal life of the country, and there is everything involved. 
How would it suit the prosperity of the United States, 
how would it suit the success of business, to have a 
people that went every day sadly or sullenly to their 
work? How would the future look to you if you felt 
that the aspiration has gone out of most men, the con- 
fidence of success, the hope that they might change their 
condition, if there was everywhere the feeling that there 
was somewhere covert dictation, private arrangement 
as to who should be in the inner circle of privilege and 
who should not, a more or less systematic and conscious 
attempt to dictate and dominate the economic life of 
the country? Do you not see that just as soon as the 
old self-confidences of America, just so soon as her old 
boasted advantages of individual liberty and opportu- 
nity are taken away, all the energy of her people begins 
to subside, to slacken, to grow loose and pulpy, without 
fibre, and men simply cast around to see that the day 
does not end disastrously with them. 

For 18 months now I have been on the inside of some 
things, and I owe it to a very elastic temperament that I 
have not become cynical. When I know that certain 
men actually do not possess political liberty because 
other men hold their notes, then I know that normal 
conditions do not exist in the United States; and that 
I do know, for I have had it from the mouths of the 
men who suffered thralldom. When I know that men 
very prominent in business dare not tell me what they 
think of some of the circumstances of the organization 
of modern business except privately and under pledge 
of confidence, then I know that something sinister has 
happened in America that has disturbed our intellectual 
manhood and our political liberty. I have made it my 
business to talk with men who understand the economic 
conditions of the country vastly better than I do, because 
they were concerned in large business transactions, and 


COLLEGE AND STATE 447 


I have almost invariably found them disposed to ask me 
not to say where I got my information. 

In God’s name, gentlemen, where does that point! Is 
it possible that there is some financial tyranny obtaining 
in America? It is not necessary that the men who exer- 
cise it should entertain tyrannous purposes; they may 
be unconscious of it; they may feel the same impulse of 
patriotism that you and I feel. Is it possible that we 
have allowed the system to grow up which they use and 
that you and the other men are afraid of them? That’s 
what we have to face, and our stake is the reputation 
and happiness of a great nation. Alas, that we should 
have to ask the question! Alas, that men who ask it 
should be supposed to be desirous of upsetting the in- 
stitutions of the country! Some of the institutions of 
this country have been upset already, not by political 
agitators, but by those who have exercised an illegiti- 
mate control over the Government, over the legislatures 
of the States of the Union. ‘There, again, I am on 
ground absolutely firm under my feet, for it is the 
ground of knowledge. I can furnish you a list of the 
partners, and [ say that when that is true, if it can be 
true, then our duty is so plain, so luminous, so attractive, 
that I do not see how any man can turn away from it. 
It is nothing less than to rehabilitate our own self-respect 
and our own liberty; it is nothing less than the oppor- 
tunity, the glorious opportunity to recover the institu- 
tions of the United States, to set them up again in their 
purity and integrity, and see to it that no man dare 
breathe a single breath of suspicion against them, to see 
that they are not tarnished by the defiling touch of any 
man with unclean hands. 

We have come to an age when constructive states- 
manship is imperative, and I thank God for it. Who 
will be the volunteers? Who will volunteer for immor- 
tality? Ah, how men deprive themselves of honour! 
How men live upon husks and throw away the thing that 
nourishes! How men lose the happiness of life by not 


448 COLLEGE AND STATE 


seeing wherein it consists! How men selfishly decline to 
serve, and so find out the infinite reward of unselfish- 
ness! How blind, how self-denying, how stupid we 
are | 

There are some words about which we are very care- 
ful. There is not much discriminating use of individual 
words in America, but there is one word about which 
we are very careful. We use the word “great” to de- 
scribe anybody who has been talked about. It does not 
require character to be great; it only requires size of 
achievement. You may throttle everybody else and get 
everything they own and be “‘great.”” You may be great 
and be feared; but there is one word which we bestow 
with great discrimination, and that is the word ‘‘noble.”’ 
You cannot be noble without character; you cannot be 
noble and not be loved; you cannot be noble and not 
serve somebody; you cannot be noble and spend every 
energy you have on yourself. 

Who are candidates for this open peerage of 
America? Who desires the patent of nobility amongst 
us? Only those who will enter upon this great enter- 
prise of recovering the ancient purity and simplicity of 
our politics. We can do it by mere candour; we can 
do it by merely discussing the facts and meeting them; 
we can do it without disturbing one of the legitimate 
transactions of business. 

I am always afraid that business men who are uneasy 
have something to be uneasy about, or that, if there is 
nothing in itself that justifies their uneasiness, perhaps 
they do not comprehend what their real situation is. 
You can find it out in this way. “Take the experience 
in Wisconsin. ‘The men who were in control of the 
public-service corporations of Wisconsin fought the 
plans of that State for the regulation of such corpora- 
tions as they would have fought the prospect of ruin; 
and what happened? Regulation of the most thorough- 
going sort was undertaken, and the result was that the 
securities of those companies were virtually guaranteed 


COLLEGE AND STATE 449 


to purchasers. Instead of being speculative in value, 
they were known to be absolutely secure investments be- 
cause a disinterested agency, a commission representing 
the community, looked into the conditions of this busi- 
ness, guaranteed that there was not water enough in it 
to drown in, guaranteed that there was business enough 
and plant enough to justify the charges and to secure 
a return of legitimate profit; and every thoughtful man 
connected with such enterprises in Wisconsin now takes 
off his hat to the men who originated the measures once 
so much dreaded. The chief benefit was not regulation, 
but frank disclosure and the absolutely open and frank 
relationship between business and government. That’s 
the advantage. The regulation may in some particulars 
have been unwise and hasty, but the relationship was 
absolutely normal and wholesome. ‘That is the way, 
no doubt, in which a satisfactory relationship is going 
to be restored between the business of the country and 
the Government of the United States—by frank dis- 
closure and well-considered readjustment. 

Of course, there must be first a flood of released 
water. I have sometimes wondered whether that great, 
obstructing, ‘“‘stand-pat” dam was not erected to restrain 
the release of watered stock. You must let it out sooner 
or later; and the sooner the better, because if we do it 
soon we will do it in good temper, and if late there is 
danger it may be done in ill-temper. 

What is the alternative, gentlemen? You have heard 
the rising tide of socialism referred to here to-night. 
Socialism is not growing in influence in this country as a 
programme. It is merely that the ranks of protestants 
are being recruited. Socialism is not a programme, but a 
protest against the present state of affairs in the United 
States. If it becomes a programme, then we shall have 
to be very careful how we purpose a competing pro- 
eramme. I do not believe in the programme of social- 
ism. If any man can say he knows anything from the 
past, perhaps he can say that the programme of socialism 


450 COLLEGE AND STATE 


would not work; but there is no use saying what will 
not work unless you can say what will work. 

A splendid sermon was once preached by Dr. Chal- 
mers on ‘“The expulsive power of a new affection.” If 
you want to oust socialism you have got to propose 
something better. It is a case, if you will allow me to 
fall into the language of the vulgar, of “put up or shut 
up.’ You cannot oppose hopeful programmes by nega- 
tions. Every statesman who ever won anything great in 
any self-governing country was a man whose programme 
would stand criticism and had the energy behind it to 
move forward against opposition. It is by constructive 
purpose that you are going to govern and save the 
United States, and therefore a man ought to welcome 
the high privilege of addressing an audience like this. 
You can analyze, you can form purposes. Many of 
you do know what is going on. You know what part ts 
wrong and what is right, if you have not lost your 
moral perspective, and you know how the wrong can 
be stopped. 

Very well, then, let us get together and form a con- 
structive programme, and then let us be happy in the 
prospect that in some distant day men shall look back 
to our time and say that the chief glory of America was 
not that she was successfully set up in a simple age when 
mankind came to begin a new life in a new land, but 
that, after the age had ceased to be simple, when the 
forces of society had come into hot contact, when there 
was bred more heat than light, there were men of serene 
enough intelligence, of steady enough self-command, of 
indomitable enough power of will and purpose to stand 
up once again and say: “‘Fellow-citizens, we have come 
into a great heritage of liberty; our heritage is not 
wealth; our distinction is not that we are rich in power; 
our boast is, rather, that we can transmute gold into the 
life blood of a free people.’ Then it will be recorded of 
us that we found out again what seemed the lost secret 
of mankind—how to translate power into freedom, 


COLLEGE AND STATE 451 


how to make men glad that they were rich, how to take 
the envy out of men’s hearts that others were rich and 
they for a little while poor, by opening the gates of 
opportunity to every man and letting a flood of gracious 
guiding light illuminate the path of every man that is 
born into the world. 








SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. 


SPEECH DELIVERED AUGUST 7, 1912, AT SEAGIRT, NEW 
JERSEY, ACCEPTING THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION 
FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. FROM 
SENATE DOCUMENT 903, 62D CONGRESS, 2D 
SESSION. 


M:: JAMES anp GENTLEMEN OF THE NOTIFICA- 
TION COMMITTEE: 


Speaking for the National Democratic Convention, 
recently assembled at Baltimore, you have notified me 
of my nomination by the Democratic party for the high 
office of President of the United States. Allow me to 
thank you very warmly for the generous terms in which 
you have, through your distinguished chairman, con- 
veyed the notification, and for the thoughtful personal 
courtesy with which you have performed your interest- 
ing and important errand. 

I accept the nomination with a deep sense of its 
unusual significance and of the great honour done me, 
and also with a very profound sense of my responsibility 
to the party and to the Nation. You will expect me in 
accepting the honour to speak very plainly the faith that 
is in me. You will expect me, in brief, to talk politics 
and open the campaign in words whose meaning no 
one need doubt. You will expect me to speak to the 
country as well as to yourselves. 

We cannot intelligently talk politics unless we know 
to whom we are talking and in what circumstances. The 
present circumstances are clearly unusual. No previous 
political campaign in our time has disclosed anything 
like them. ‘The audience we address is in no ordinary 

452 


COLLEGE AND STATE 453 


temper. It is no audience of partisans. Citizens of 
every class and party and prepossession sit together, a 
single people, to learn whether we understand their life 
and know how to afford them the counsel and guidance 
they are now keenly aware that they stand in need of. 
We must speak, not to catch votes, but to satisfy the 
thought and conscience of a people deeply stirred by 
the conviction that they have come to a critical turning 
point in their moral and political development. 


IN PRESENCE OF AN AWAKENED NATION, 


We stand in the presence of an awakened Nation, 
impatient of partisan make-believe. The public man 
who does not realize the fact and feel its stimulation 
must be singularly unsusceptible to the influences that 
stir in every quarter about him. The Nation has awak- 
ened to a sense of neglected ideals and neglected duties; 
to a consciousness that the rank and file of her people 
find life very hard to sustain, that her young men find 
opportunity embarrassed, and that her older men find 
business difficult to renew and maintain because of cir- 
cumstances of privilege and private advantage which 
have interlaced their subtle threads throughout almost 
every part of the framework of our present law. She 
has awakened to the knowledge that she has lost certain 
cherished liberties and has wasted priceless resources 
which she had solemnly undertaken to hold in trust for 
posterity and for all mankind; and to the conviction 
that she stands confronted with an occasion for con- 
structive statesmanship such as has not arisen since the 
great days in which her Government was set up. 

Plainly, it is a new age. The tonic of such a time ts 
very exhilarating. It requires self-restraint not to 
attempt too much, and yet it would be cowardly to 
attempt too little. The path of duty soberly and 
bravely trod is the way to service and distinction, and 
many adventurous feet seek to set out upon it. 


454 COLLEGE AND STATE 


There never was a time when impatience and suspicion 
were more keenly aroused by private power selfishly 
employed; when jealousy of everything concealed or 
touched with any purpose not linked with general good, 
or inconsistent with it, more sharply or immediately 
displayed itself. 

Nor was the country ever more susceptible to unsel- 
fish appeals or to the high arguments of sincere justice. 
These are the unmistakable symptoms of an awakening. 
There is the more need of wise counsel because the 
people are so ready to heed counsel if it be given 
honestly and in their interest. 


GREAT QUESTIONS OF RIGHT AND JUSTICE. 


It is in the broad light of this new day that we stand 
face to face—with what? Plainly not with questions of 
party, not with a contest for office, not with a petty 
struggle for advantage, Democrat against Republican, 
liberal against conservative, progressive against reac- 
tionary. With great questions of right and of justice, 
rather—dquestions of national development, of the de- 
velopment of character and of standards of action no 
less than of a better business system, more free, more 
equitable, more open to ordinary men, practicable to 
live under, tolerable to work under, or a better fiscal 
system whose taxes shall not come out of the pockets 
of the many to go into the pockets of the few, and 
within whose intricacies special privilege may not so 
easily find covert. The forces of the Nation are assert- 
ing themselves against every form of special privilege 
and private control, and are seeking bigger things than 
they have ever heretofore achieved. ‘They are sweep- 
ing away what is unrighteous in order to vindicate once 
more the essential rights of human life; and, what is 
very serious for us, they are looking to us for guidance, 
disinterested guidance, at once honest and fearless. 

At such a time, and in the presence of such circum- 


COLLEGE AND STATE 455 


stances, what is the meaning of our platform, and what 
is our responsibility under it? What are our duty and 
our purpose? ‘The platform is meant to show that we 
know what the Nation is thinking about, what it is most 
concerned about, what it wishes corrected, and what it 
desires to see attained that is new and constructive and 
intended for its long future. But for us it is a very 
practical document. We are not about to ask the people 
of the United States to adopt our platform; we are 
about to ask them to intrust us with office and power 
and the guidance of their affairs. They will wish to 
know what sort of men we are and of what definite pur- 
pose; what translation of action and of policy we intend 
to give to the general terms of the platform which the 
convention at Baltimore put forth, should we be elected. 

The platform is not a programme. A programme 
must consist of measures, administrative acts, and acts 
of legislation. The proof of the pudding is the eating 
thereof. How do we intend to make it edible and di- 
gestible? From this time on we shall be under interro- 
gation. How do we expect to handle each of the great 
matters that must be taken up by the next Congress and 
the next administration? 


RULE OF JUSTICE FOR TARIFF AND TRUSTS. 


What is there todo? It is hard to sum the great task 
up, but apparently this is the sum of the matter: There 
are two great things to do. One is to set up the rule | 
of justice and of right in such matters as the tariff, the 
regulation of the trusts, and the prevention of monop- 
oly, the adaptation of our banking and currency laws 
to the various uses to which our people must put them, 
the treatment of those who do the daily labour in our 
factories and mines and throughout all our great indus- 
trial and commercial undertakings, and the political life 
of the people of the Philippines, for whom we hold 
governmental power in trust, for their service, not our 


456 COLLEGE AND STATE 


own. The other, the additional duty, is the great task 
of protecting our people and our resources and of keep- 
ing open to the whole people the doors of opportunity 
through which they must, generation by generation, pass 
if they are to make conquest of their fortunes in health, 
in freedom, in peace, and in contentment. In the per- 
formance of this second great duty we are face to face 
with questions of conservation and of development, ques- 
tions of forests and water powers and mines and water- 
ways, of the building of an adequate merchant marine, 
and the opening of every highway and facility and the 
setting up of every safeguard needed by a great, indus- 
trious, expanding nation. 

These are all great matters upon which everybody 
should be heard. We have got into trouble in recent 
years chiefly because these large things, which ought to 
have been handled by taking counsel with as large a 
number of persons as possible, because they touched 
every interest and the life of every class and region, have 
in fact been too often handled in private conference. 
They have been settled by very small, and often deliber- 
ately exclusive, groups of men who undertook to speak 
for the whole Nation, or rather for themselves in the 
terms of the whole Nation—very honestly it may be 
true, but very ignorantly sometimes, and very short- 
sightedly, too—a poor substitute for genuine common 
counsel. No group of directors, economic or political, 
can speak for a people. They have neither the point of 
view nor the knowledge. Our difficulty is not that wicked 
and designing men have plotted against us, but that our 
common affairs have been determined upon too narrow 
a view, and by too private an initiative. Our task now 

is to effect a great readjustment and get the forces 
_ of the whole people once more into play. We need 
no revolution; we need no excited change; we need only 
a new point of view and a new method and spirit of 
counsel. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 457 


NATION HAS BEEN AT WAR WITHIN ITSELF. 


Weare servants of the people, the whole people. The 
Nation has been unnecessarily, unreasonably, at war 
within itself. Interest has clashed with interest when 
there were common principles of right and of fair deal- 
ing which might and should have bound them all to- 
gether, not as rivals, but as partners. As the servants 
of all, we are bound to undertake the great duty of ac- 
commodation and adjustment. 

We cannot undertake it except in a spirit which some 
find it hard to understand. Some people only smile when 
you speak of yourself as a servant of the people; it seems 
to them like affectation or mere demagoguery. ‘They 
ask what the unthinking crowd knows or comprehends of 
great complicated matters of government. They shrug 
their shoulders and lift their eyebrows when you speak 
as if you really believed in presidential primaries, in the 
direct election of United States Senators, and in an utter 
publicity about everything that concerns government, 
from the sources of campaign funds to the intimate 
debate of the higher affairs of State. 

They do not, or will not, comprehend the solemn thing 
that is in your thought. You know as well as they do that 
there are all sorts and conditions of men—the unthink- 
ing mixed with the wise, the reckless with the prudent, 
the unscrupulous with the fair and honest—and you 
know what they sometimes forget, that every class with- 
out exception affords a sample of the mixture, the 
learned and the fortunate no less than the uneducated 
and the struggling mass. But you see more than they 
do. You see that these multitudes of men, mixed, of 
every kind and quality, constitute somehow an organic 
and noble whole, a single people, and that they have 
interests which no man can privately determine without 
their knowledge and counsel. That is the meaning of 
representative government itself. Representative gov- 
ernment is nothing more or less than an effort to give 


458 COLLEGE AND STATE 


voice to this great body through spokesmen chosen out 
of every grade and class. 


TARIFF HAS BEEN POLITICS INSTEAD OF BUSINESS. 


You may think that I am wandering off into a general 
disquisition that has little to do with the business in 
hand, but I am not. This is business—business of the 
deepest sort. It will solve our difficulties if you will 
but take it as business. 

See how it makes business out of the tariff question. 
The tariff question, as dealt with in our time at any rate, 
has not been business. It has been politics. Tariff 
schedules have been made up for the purpose of keeping 
as large a number as possible of the rich and influential 
manufacturers of the country in a good humour with 
the Republican party, which desired their constant finan- 
cial support. The tariff has become a system of favours, 
which the phraseology of the schedule was often delib- 
erately contrived to conceal. It becomes a matter of 
business, of legitimate business, only when the partner- 
ship and understanding it represents is between the 
leaders of Congress and the whole people of the United 
States, instead of between the leaders of Congress and 
small groups of manufacturers demanding special recog- 
nition and consideration. That is why the general idea 
of representative government becomes a necessary part 
of the tariff question. Who, when you come down to 
the hard facts of the matter, have been represented in 
recent years when our tariff schedules were being dis- 
cussed and determined, not on the floor of Congress, for 
that is not where they have been determined, but in the 
committee rooms and conferences? ‘That is the heart 
of the whole affair. Will you, can you, bring the whole 
people into the partnership or not? No one is dis- 
contented with representative government; it falls under 
question only when it ceases to be representative. It 
is at bottom a question of good faith and morals. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 459 


TARIFF HAS BEEN USED TO FOSTER SPECIAL PRIVILEGE 


How does the present tariff look in the light of it? 
I say nothing for the moment about the policy of pro- 
tection, conceived and carried out as a disinterested 
statesman might conceive it. Our own clear conviction 
as Democrats is, that in the last analysis the only safe 
and legitimate object of tariff duties, as of taxes of every 
other kind, is to raise revenue for the support of the 
Government; but that is not my present point. We de- 
nounce the Payne-Aldrich tariff act as the most conspicu- 
ous example ever afforded the country of the special 
favours and monopolistic advantages which the leaders 
of the Republican party have so often shown themselves 
willing to extend to those to whom they looked for cam- 
paign contributions. Tariff duties as they have em- 
ployed them have not been a means of setting up an 
equitable system of protection. ‘They have been, on 
the contrary, a method of fostering special privilege. 
They have made it easy to establish monopoly in our 
domestic markets. Trusts have owed their origin and 
their secure power to them. The economic freedom of 
our people, our prosperity in trade, our untrammelled 
energy in manufacture depend upon their reconsidera- 
tion from top to bottom in an entirely different spirit. 

We do not ignore the fact that the business of a 
country like ours is exceedingly sensitive to changes in 
legislation of this kind. It has been built up, however 
inadvisedly, upon tariff schedules written in the way I 
have indicated, and its foundations must not be too radi- 
cally or too suddenly disturbed. When we act we should 
act with caution and prudence, like men who know what 
they are about, and not like those in love with a theory. 
It is obvious that the changes we make should be made 
only at such a rate and in such a way as will least inter- 
fere with the normal and healthful course of commerce 
and manufacture. But we shall not on that account act 


460 COLLEGE AND STATE 


with timidity, as if we did not know our own minds, for 
we are certain of our ground and of our object. There 
should be an immediate revision, and it should be down- 
ward, unhesitatingly and steadily downward. 


DUTIES MUST BE REVISED TO END SPECIAL FAVOURS 


It should begin with the schedules which have been 
most obviously used to kill competition to raise prices 
in the United States, arbitrarily and without regard 
to the prices pertaining elsewhere in the markets of the 
world; and it should, before it is finished or intermitted, 
be extended to every item in every schedule which affords 
any opportunity for monopoly, for special advantage 
to limited groups of beneficiaries, or for subsidized con- 
trol of any kind in the markets or the enterprises of the 
country; until special favours of every sort shall have 
been absolutely withdrawn and every part of our laws 
of taxation shall have been transformed from a system 
of governmental patronage into a system of just and 
reasonable charges which shall fall where they will 
create the least burden. When we shall have done that, 
we can fix questions of revenue and of business adjust- 
ment in a new spirit and with clear minds. We shall 
then be partners with all the business men of the coun- 
try, and a day of freer, more stable property shall have 
dawned. | 

There has been no more demoralizing influence in our 
politics in our time than the influence of tariff legisla- 
tion, the influence of the idea that the Government was 
the grand dispenser of favours, the maker and unmaker 
of fortunes and of opportunities such as certain men 
have sought in order to control the movement of trade 
and industry throughout the continent. It has made the 
. Government a prize to be captured and parties the 
means of effecting the capture. It has made the business 
men of one of the most virile and enterprising nations 
of the world timid, fretful, full of alarms; has robbed 


COLLEGE AND STATE 461 


them of self-confidence and manly force, until they have 
cried out that they could do nothing without the assist- 
ance of the Government at Washington. It has made 
them feel that their lives depended upon the Ways and 
Means Committee of the House and the Finance Com- 
mittee of the Senate (in these later years particularly 
the Finance Committee of the Senate). They have in- 
sisted very anxiously that these committees should be 
made up only of their “‘friends’’; until the country in its 
turn grew suspicious and wondered how those commit- 
tees were being guided and controlled, by what influences 
and plans of personal advantage. Government cannot 
be wholesomely conducted in such an atmosphere. Its 
very honesty is in jeopardy. Favours are never con- 
ceived in the general interest; they are always for the 
benefit of the few, and the few who seek and obtain them 
have only themselves to blame if presently they seem 
to be contemned and distrusted. 


MAJORITY POORER, THOUGH WAGES HAVE INCREASED 


For what has the result been? Prosperity? Yes, if 
by prosperity you mean vast wealth no matter how dis- 
tributed, or whether distributed at all or not; if you 
mean vast enterprises built up to be presently concen- 
trated under the control of comparatively small bodies 
of men, who can determine almost at pleasure whether 
there shall be competition or not. ‘The Nation as a 
nation has grown immensely rich. She is justly proud 
of her industries and of the genius of her men of affairs. 
They can master anything they set their minds to, and 
we have been greatly stimulated under their leadership 
and command. Their laurels are many and very green. 
We must accord them the great honours that are due and 
we must preserve what they have built up for us. But 
what of the other side of the picture? It is not as easy 
for us to live as it used to be. Our money will not buy 
as much. High wages, even when we can get them, 


462 COLLEGE AND STATE 


yield us no great comfort. We used to be better off 
with less because a dollar could buy so much more. The 
majority of us have been disturbed to find ourselves 
growing poorer, even though our earnings were slowly 
increasing. Prices climb faster than we can push our 
earnings up. 

Moreover, we begin to perceive some things about 
the movement of prices that concern us very deeply, and 
fix our attention upon the tariff schedules with a more 
definite determination than ever to get to the bottom 
of this matter. We have been looking into it, at trials 
held under the Sherman Act and in investigations in 
the committee rooms of Congress, where men who 
wanted to know the real facts have been busy with in- 
quiry; and we begin to see very clearly what at least 
some of the methods are by which prices are fixed. We 
know that they are not fixed by the competitions of the 
market, or by the ancient law of supply and demand 
which is to be found stated in all the primers of eco- 
nomics, but by private arrangements with regard to 
what the supply should be and agreements among the 
producers themselves. Those who buy are not even 
represented by counsel. The high cost of living is 
arranged by private understanding. 


LEGISLATION THAT HAS BEEN MADE FOR THE FEW 


We naturally ask ourselves, How did these gentlemen 
get control of these things? We handed our economic 
laws over to them for legislative and contractual alter- 
ation. We have in these disclosures still another view 
of the tariff, still another proof that not the people 
of the United States but only a very small number 
of them have been partners in that legislation. Those 
few have learned how to control tariff legislation, and 
as they have perfected their control they have consoli- 
dated their interests. Men of the same interest have 
drawn together, have united their enterprises and have 


COLLEGE AND STATE 463 


formed trusts; and trusts can control prices. Up toa 
certain point (and only up to a certain point) great 
combinations effect great economies in administration, 
and increase efficiency by simplifying and perfecting 
organization; but whether they effect economies or not, 
they can very easily determine prices by intimate agree- 
ment so soon as they come to control a sufficient per- 
centage of the product in any great line of business; 
and we know that they do. 

I am not drawing up an indictment against anybody. 
That is the natural history of such tariffs as are now 
contrived, as it is the natural history of all other gov- 
ernmental favours and of all licenses to use the Govern- 
ment to help certain groups of individuals along in life. 
Nobody in particular, I suppose, is to blame, and I am 
not interested just now in blaming anybody. I am 
simply trying to point out what the situation is, in order 
to suggest what there is for us to do if we would serve 
the country as a whole. The fact is that the trusts have 
been formed, have gained all but complete control of 
the larger enterprises of the country, have fixed prices 
and fixed them high so that profits might be rolled up 
that were thoroughly worth while, and that the tariff, 
with its artificial protection and stimulations, gave them 
the opportunity to do these things and has safeguarded 
them in that opportunity. 


PERIOD OF INFANT INDUSTRIES HAS PASSED. 


The trusts do not belong to the period of infant indus- 
tries. They are not the products of the time, that old, 
laborious time, when the great continent we live on was 
undeveloped, the young Nation struggling to find itself 
and get upon its feet amidst older and more experienced 
competitors. ‘They belong to a very recent and very 
sophisticated age, when men knew what they wanted 
and knew how to get it by the favour of the Govern- 
ment. It is another chapter in the natural history of 


464. COLLEGE AND STATE 


power and of “governing classes.”” ‘The next chapter 
will set us free again. There will be no flavour of 
tragedy in it. It will be a chapter of readjustment, not 
of pain and rough disturbance. It will witness a turning 
back from what is abnormal to what is normal. It will 
see a restoration of the laws of trade, which are the laws 
of competition and of unhampered opportunity, under 
which men of every sort are set free and encouraged to 
enrich the Nation. 

I am not one of those who think that competition can 
be established by law against the drift of a world-wide 
economic tendency; neither am I one of those who be- 
lieve that business done upon a great scale by a single 
organization—call it corporation, or what you will—is 
necessarily dangerous to the liberties, even the economic 
liberties, of a great people like our own, full of intelli- 
gence and of indomitable energy. I am not afraid of 
anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never 
return to the old order of individual competition, and 
that the organization of business upon a great scale of 
coOperation is, up to a certain point, itself normal and 
inevitable. 


BIG BUSINESS NOT DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT IS BIG, 


Power in the hands of great business men does not 
make me apprehensive, unless it springs out of advan- 
tages which they have not created for themselves. Big 
business is not dangerous because it is big, but because 
its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by priv- 
ileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy. 
While competition cannot be created by statutory en- 
actment, it can in large measure be revived by changing 
the laws and forbidding the practices that killed it, and 
by enacting laws that will give it heart and occasion 
again. We can arrest and prevent monopoly. It has 
assumed new shapes and adopted new processes in our 


COLLEGE AND STATE 465 


time, but these are now being disclosed and can be 
dealt with. 

The general terms of the present Federal antitrust 
law, forbidding ‘‘combinations in restraint of trade,” 
have apparently proved ineffectual. Trusts have grown 
up under its ban very luxuriantly and have pursued the 
methods by which so many of them have established 
virtual monopolies without serious let or hindrance. It 
has roared against them like any sucking dove. I am 
not assessing the responsibility. I am merely stating the 
fact. But the means and methods by which trusts have 
established monopolies have now become known. It will 
be necessary to supplement the present law with such 
laws, both civil and criminal, as will effectually punish 
and prevent those methods, adding such other laws as 
may be necessary to provide suitable and adequate judi- 
cial processes, whether civil or criminal, to disclose them 
and follow them to final verdict and judgment. They 
must be specifically and directly met by law as they 
develop. 


VAST CONFEDERACIES OF BANKS AND RAILWAYS. 


But the problem and the difficulty are much greater 
than that. There are not merely great trusts and com- 
binations which are to be controlled and deprived of 
their power to create monopolies and destroy rivals; 
there is something bigger still than they are and more 
subtle, more evasive, more difficult to deal with. There 
are vast confederacies (as I may perhaps call them for 
the sake of convenience) of banks, railways, express 
companies, insurance companies, manufacturing corpo- 
rations, mining corporations, power and development 
companies, and all the rest of the circle, bound to- 
gether by the fact that the ownership of their stock 
and the members of their boards of directors are con- 
trolled and determined by comparatively small and 
closely interrelated groups of persons who, by their in- 


466 COLLEGE AND STATE 


formal confederacy, may control, if they please and 
when they will, both credit and enterprise. There is 
nothing illegal about these confederacies, so far as I 
can perceive. They have come about very naturally, 
generally without plan or deliberation, rather because 
there was so much money to be invested, and it was in 
the hands, at great financial centres, of men acquainted 
with one another and intimately associated in business, 
than because any one had conceived and was carrying 
out a plan of general control; but they are none the 
less potent a force in our economic and financial system 
on that account. ‘They are part of our problem. Their 
very existence gives rise to the suspicion of a “money 
trust,’ a concentration of the control of credit which 
may at any time become infinitely dangerous to free 
enterprise. If such a concentration and control does 
not actually exist it is evident that it can easily be set up 
and used at will. Laws must be devised which will pre- 
vent this, if laws can be worked out by fair and free 
counsel that will accomplish that result without destroy- 
ing or seriously embarrassing any sound or legitimate 
business undertaking or necessary and wholesome 
arrangement. 

Let me say again that what we are seeking is not 
destruction of any kind nor the disruption of any sound 
or honest thing, but merely the rule of right and of the 
common advantage. -I am happy to say that a new 
spirit has begun to show itself in the last year or two 
among influential men of business, and, what is perhaps 
even more significant, among the lawyers who are their 
expert advisers; and that this spirit has displayed itself 
very notably in the last few months in an effort to return, 
in some degree at any rate, to the practices of genuine 
competition. Only a very little while ago our men 
of business were united in resisting every proposal of 
change and reform as an attack on business, an em- 
barrassment to all large enterprise, an intimation that 
settled ideas of property were to be set aside and a new 


COLLEGE AND STATE 467 


and strange order of things created out of hand. While 
they thought in that way, progress seemed impossible 
without hot contest and a bitter clash between interests, 
almost a war of classes. Common counsel seemed all 
but hopeless, because some of the chief parties in inter- 
est would not take part; seemed even to resent dis- 
cussion as a manifestation of hostility towards them- 
selves. They talked constantly about vested interests 
and were very hot. 


BIG BUSINESS MEN ARE SEEING THE LIGHT. 


It is a happy omen that their attitude has changed. 
They see that what is right can hurt no man; that a new 
adjustment of interests is inevitable and desirable, is in 
the interest of everybody; that their own honour, their 
own intelligence, their own practical comprehension of 
affairs is involved. They are beginning to adjust their 
business to the new standards. ‘Their hand is no longer 
against the Nation; they are part of it; their interests 
are bound up with its interests. ‘This is not true of all 
of them; but it is true of enough of them to show what 
the new age is to be and how the anxieties of statesmen 
are to be eased if the light that is dawning broadens 
into day. 

If I am right about this, it is going to be easier to act 
in accordance with the rule of right and justice in deal- 
ing with the labour question. ‘The so-called labour ques- 
tion is a question only because we have not yet found 
the rule of right in adjusting the interests of labour 
and capital. The welfare, the happiness, the energy and 
spirit of the men and women who do the daily work 
in our mines and factories, on our railroads, in our 
offices and marts of trade, on our farms and on the 
sea, are of the essence of our national life. There can 
be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; 
there can be no contentment unless they are contented. 
Their physical welfare affects the soundness of the whole 


468 COLLEGE AND STATE 


Nation. We shall never get very far in the settlement 
of these vital matters so long as we regard everything 
done for the workingman, by law or by private agree- 
ment, as a concession yielded to keep him from agitation 
and a disturbance of our peace. Here, again, the sense 
- of universal partnership must come into play if we are 
to act like statesmen, as those who serve, not a class, 
but a nation. 


FIRST REGARD MUST BE CARE OF WORKING PEOPLE. 


The working people of America—if they must be 
distinguished from the minority that constitutes the rest 
of it—are, of course, the backbone of the Nation. No 
law that safeguards their life, that makes their hours of 
labour rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom 
to act in their own interest, and that protects them 
where they cannot protect themselves, can properly be 
regarded as class legislation or as anything but as a 
measure taken in the interest of the whole people, 
whose partnership in right action we are trying to estab- 
lish and make real and practical. It is in this spirit that 
we shall act if we are genuine spokesmen of the whole 
country. | 

As our programme is disclosed—for no man can fore- 
cast it ready-made and before counsel is taken of every- 
one concerned—this must be its measure and standard, 
the interest of all concerned. For example, in dealing 
with the complicated and difficult question of the reform 
of our banking and currency laws it is plain that we 
ought to consult very many persons besides the bankers, 
not because we distrust the bankers, but because they do 
not necessarily comprehend the business of the country, 
notwithstanding they are indispensable servants of it and 
may do a vast deal to make it hard or easy. No mere 
bankers’ plan will meet the requirements, no matter how 
honestly conceived. It should be a merchants’ and 
farmers’ plan as well, elastic in the hands of those who 


COLLEGE AND STATE 469 


use it as an indispensable part of their daily business. 
I do not know enough about this subject to be dogmatic 
about it; I know only enough to be sure what the part- 
nerships in it should be and that the control exercised 
over any system we may set up should be, as far as 
possible, a control emanating not from a single special 
class, but from the general body and authority of the 
Nation itself. 


WE MERELY HOLD THE PHILIPPINES IN TRUST. 


In dealing with the Philippines we should not allow 
ourselves to stand upon any mere point of pride, as if, 
in order to keep countenance in the families of nations, 
it were necessary for us to make the same blunders of 
selfishness that other nations have made. We are not . 
the owners of the Philippine Islands. We hold them in 
trust for the people who live in them. They are theirs, 
for the uses of their life. We are not even their part- 
ners. It is our duty, as trustees, to make whatever 
arrangement of government will be most serviceable to 
their freedom and development. Here, again, we are to 
set up the rule of justice and of right. 

The rule of the people is no idle phrase; those who 
believe in it—as who does not that has caught the 
real spirit of America ?—believe that there can be no 
rule of right without it; that right in politics is made 
up of the interests of everybody, and everybody should 
take part in the action that is to determine it. We have 
been keen for presidential primaries and the direct elec- 
tion of United States Senators, because we wanted the 
action of the Government to be determined by persons 
whom the people had actually designated as men whom 
they were ready to trust and follow. We have been 
anxious that all campaign contributions and expenditures 
should be disclosed to the public in fullest detail, because 
we regarded the influences which govern campaigns to 
be as much a part of the people’s business as anything 


470 COLLEGE AND STATE 


else connected with their Government. We are working 
toward a very definite object—the universal partnership 
in public affairs upon which the purity of politics and its 
aim and spirit depend. 

For there is much for the partners to undertake. In 
the affairs of a great nation we plan and labour, not for 
the present only, but for the long future as well. There 
are great tasks of protection and conservation and de- 
velopment to which we have to address ourselves. 
Government has much more to do than merely to right 
wrongs and set the house in order. 


WE MUST HUSBAND OUR NATURAL RESOURCES 


I do not know any greater question than that of con- 
servation. We have been a spendthrift nation, and 
now must husband what we have left. We must do more 
than that. We must develop, as well as preserve, our 
water powers and must add great waterways to the 
transportation facilities of the nation, to supplement the 
railways within our borders as well as upon the Isthmus. 
We must revive our merchant marine, too, and fill the 
seas again with our own fleets. We must add to our 
present post-office service a parcel post as complete as 
that of any other nation. We must look to the health 
of our people upon every hand, as well as hearten them 
with justice and opportunity. This is the constructive 
work of government. ‘This is the policy that has a 
vision and a hope and that looks to serve mankind. 

There are many sides to these great matters. Con- 
servation is easy to generalize about, but hard to par- 
ticularize about wisely. Reservation is not the whole 
of conservation. The development of great States must 
not be stayed indefinitely to await a policy by which 
our forests and water powers can prudently be made use 
of. Use and development must go hand in hand. The 
policy we adopt must be progressive, not negative, 
merely, as if we did not know what to do. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 471 


With regard to the development of greater and more 
numerous waterways and the building up of a merchant 
marine, we must follow great constructive lines and 
not fall back upon the cheap device of bounties and sub- 
sidies. In the case of the Mississippi River, that great 
central artery of our trade, it is plain that the Federal 
Government must build and maintain the levees and keep 
the great waters in harness for the general use. It is 
plain, too, that vast sums of money must be spent to 
develop new waterways where trade will be most served 
and transportation most readily cheapened by them. 
Such expenditures are no largess on the part of the 
Government; they are national investments. 


AMERICAN SHIPS MUST CARRY AMERICAN GOODS 


The question of a merchant marine turns back to the 
tariff again, to which all roads seem to lead, and to 
our registry laws, which, if coupled with the tariff, might 
almost be supposed to have been intended to take the 
American flag off the seas. Bounties are not necessary, 
if you will but undo some of the things that have been 
done. Without a great merchant marine we cannot 
take our rightful place in the commerce of the world. 
Merchants who must depend upon the carriers of rival 
mercantile nations to carry their goods to market are 
at a disadvantage in international trade too manifest 
to need to be pointed out; and our merchants will not 
long suffer themselves—ought not to suffer them- 
selves—to be placed at such a _ disadvantage. 
Our industries have expanded to such a_ point 
that they will burst their jackets if they cannot find 
a free outlet to the markets of the world; and they 
cannot find such an outlet unless they be given ships 
of their own to carry their goods—ships that will 
go the routes they want them to go—and prefer the 
interests of America in their sailing orders and their 
equipment. Our domestic markets no longer suffice. 


472 COLLEGE AND STATE 


' We need foreign markets. That is another force that 
is going to break the tariff down. ‘The tariff was once 
a bulwark; now it isa dam. For trade is reciprocal; we 
cannot sell unless we also buy. 

The very fact that we have at last taken the Panama 
Canal seriously in hand and are vigorously pushing it 
toward completion is eloquent of our reawakened inter- 
est in international trade. We are not building the 
canal and pouring out millions upon millions of money 
upon its construction merely to establish a water con- 
nection between the two coasts of the continent, im- 
portant and desirable as that may be, particularly from 
the point of view of naval defense. It is meant to be 
a great international highway. It would be a little 
ridiculous if we should build it and then have no ships to 
send through it. There have been years when not a 
single ton of freight passed through the great Suez 
Canal in an American bottom, so empty are the seas of 
our ships and seamen. We must mean to put an end 
to that kind of thing or we would not be cutting a new 
canal at our very doors merely for the use of our men- 
of-war. We shall not manage the revival by the mere 
paltry device of tolls. We must build and buy ships in 
competition with the world. We can do it if we will but 
give ourselves leave. 


EDUCATION IS A PART OF CONSERVATION. 


There is another duty which the Democratic party 
has shown itself great enough and close enough to the 
people to perceive, the duty of Government to share in 
promoting agricultural, industrial, vocational educa- 
tion in every way possible within its constitutional pow- 
ers. No other platform has given this intimate vision 
of a party’s duty. The Nation cannot enjoy its de- 
served supremacy in the markets and enterprises of the 
world unless its people are given the ease and effec- 
tiveness that come only with knowledge and training. 


COLLEGE AND STATE 473 


Education is part of the great task of conservation, part 
of the task of renewal and of perfected power. 

We have set ourselves a great programme, and it will 
be a great party that carries it out. It must be a party 
without entangling alliances with any special interest 
whatever. It must have the spirit and the point of 
view of the new age. Men are turning away from the 
Republican party, as organized under its old leaders, 
because they found that it was not free; that it was 
entangled; and they are turning to us because they deem 
us free to serve them. They are immensely interested, 
as we are, as every man who reads the signs of the time 
and feels the spirit of the new age is, in the new pro- 
gramme. It is solidly based on the facts of our national 
life; its items are items of present business; it is what 
every man should wish to see done who wishes to see 
our present distemper made an end of and our old free 
cooperative life restored. 

We should go into this campaign confident of only 
one thing—confident of what we want to do if in- 
trusted with the Government. It is not a partisan fight 
we are entering upon. We are happily excused from 
personal attacks upon opponents and from all general 
indictments against the men opposed to us. The facts 
are patent to everybody; we do not have to prove them; 
the more frank among our opponents admit them. Our 
thinking must be constructive from start to finish. We 
must show that we understand the problems that con- 
front us, and that we are soberly minded to deal with 
them; applying to them, not nostrums and notions, but 
hard sense and good courage. 


IT IS A CONTEST OF PRINCIPLES 


A presidential campaign may easily degenerate into 
a mere personal contest and so lose its real dignity and 
significance. There is no indispensable man. ‘The 
Government will not collapse and go to pieces if any 


474 COLLEGE AND STATE 


one of the gentlemen who are seeking to be entrusted 
with its guidance should be left at home. But men 
are instruments. We are as important as the cause 
we represent, and in order to be important must really 
represent a cause. What is our cause? ‘The people’s 
cause. That is easy to say, but what does it mean? 
The common as against any particular interest what- 
ever? Yes, but that, too, needs translation into acts 
and policies. We represent the desire to set up an 
unentangled government, a government that cannot 
be used for private purposes, either in the field of 
business or in the field of politics; a government that 
will not tolerate the use of the organization of a great 
party to serve the personal aims and ambitions of any 
individual, and that will not permit legislation to be 
employed to further any private interest. It is a great 
conception, but I am free to serve it, as you also are. 
I could not have accepted a nomination which left me 
bound to any man or group of men. No man can be 
just who is not free; and no man who has to show 
favours ought to undertake the solemn responsibility of 
government in any rank or post whatever, least of all 
in the supreme post of President of the United States. 

To be free is not necessarily to be wise. But wisdom 
comes with counsel, with the frank and free conference 
of untrammelled men united in the common interest. 
Should I be entrusted with the great office of President, 
I would seek counsel wherever it could be had upon 
free terms. I know the temper of the great convention 
which nominated me; I know the temper. of the country 
that lay back of that convention and spoke through it. 
I heed with deep thankfulness the message you bring 
me from it. I feel that I am surrounded by men 
whose principles and ambitions are those of true serv- 
ants of the people. I thank God, and will take courage. 


END OF VOLUME TWO 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES OF WOODROW 
WILSON, COMPILED BY THE REFERENCE LIBRARIANS OF 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, HARRY CLEMONS, GEORGE DOBBIN 
BROWN, AND HOWARD SEAVOY LEACH, EDITED WITH ADDI- 
TIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY HOWARD SEAVOY LEACH, A.M., 
LIBRARIAN OF LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 


This bibliography is based upon the three Essays! published in 
pamphlet form by the Library of Princeton University. A consid- 
erable number of obscure items have been added, as well as items 
published or republished after the appearance of the three Essays. 
This section of the bibliography covers the period from about 1875 
to March, 1913. “Iwo other sections will appear in later volumes 
of the Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Our thanks are ex- 
tended to the Library of Princeton University for permission to 
reprint its bibliographies. Notice of omissions or inaccuracies will 
be appreciated by the editor. 

H.S8.L. 


THe FoLLowInc 1s A CHRONOLOGICAL List oF PREVIOUS 
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF Wooprow WILSoNn 


American historical association. Annual report for 1892. (A 
partial bibliography of Mr. Wilson, pp. 299-300.) 


Sewanee Review, February, 1895, Vol. III, pp. 172-188. The 
work of a Southern scholar. (Ancestry, biography, and bibliography 
of Mr. Wilson.) 


*Clemons, Harry. An essay towards a bibliography of the pub- 
lished writings and addresses of Woodrow Wilson, 1875-1910. Prince- 
ton. The Library of Princeton University. 1913. 24 p. 

Brown George Dobbin. An essay towards a bibliography of the 
published writings and addresses of Woodrow Wilson, 1910-1917 
(March 4, 1917). Princeton. The Library of Princeton University. 
1917. 52 P. 

Leach, Howard Seavoy. An essay towards a bibliography of the pub- 
lished writings and addresses of Woodrow Wilson, March, 1917, to 
March, 1921. Princeton. The Library of Princeton University. 1922. 


73 P- 
475 


476 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


American academy of political and social science. Annals, March, 
1903, Vol. X XI, p. 294. (List of published writings of Mr. Wilson 
since 1895.) 


Critic, June, 1903, Vol. XLII, pp. 510-511. Edwin M. Norris. 
Some writers of the Princeton faculty. (Sketch and select bib- 
liography of Mr. Wilson, pp. 510-511.) 


An essay towards a bibliography of the published writings and 
addresses of Woodrow Wilson, 1875-1910. By Harry Clemons, 
Reference Librarian, Princeton. The Library of Princeton Univer- 


sity, I913. 24 p. 


Johns Hopkins University circular. New series, 1915, No. 10. 
December, 1915. Publications of members and graduates of the 
departments of history, political economy, and political science, 
1901-1915. “Wilson, Woodrow,” pp. 102-110. 


An essay towards a bibliography of the published writings and 
addresses of Woodrow Wilson, 1910-1917. By George Dobbin 
Brown, Reference Librarian, Princeton. The Library of Princeton 
University. 1917. 52 p. 


An essay towards a bibliography of the published writings and 
addresses of Woodrow Wilson, March, 1917, to March, 1921. By 
Howard Seavoy Leach, A.M., Reference Librarian, Princeton. 
The Library of Princeton University, 1922. 73 p. 


THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES OF 
WOODROW WILSON 


1875-1913 
1877-9. (The Princetonian. Editor, April 1877, to April 1878, 


vol. 2; one of two managing editors, Nov. 15, 1877, to 
Jan. 10, 1878, nos. 10-13. Managing editor, May 
1878 to May 1879, vol. 3.) 


1877. Prince Bismarck. (Signed “Atticus.’’) 
Nassau Literary Magazine, Nov. 1877, vol. 33, no. 2, 
pp. 118-127. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 1-10. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1878. William Earl Chatham. Prize essay. 
Nassau Literary Magazine, Oct. 1878, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 
99-105. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 477 


Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 11-18. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1879. Cabinet government in the United States. 
International review, Aug. 1879, vol. 7, pp. 146-163. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 19-42. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1880. John Bright. (Oration delivered before the Jefferson Society 
of the University of Virginia. Unsigned.) 
University of Virginia Magazine, Mar. 1880, vol. 19, 
no. 6, pp. 354-370. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 43-59. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Is the Roman Catholic element in the United States a menace 
to American institutions? (Argument on the negative 
in a debate before the Jefferson Society, Apr., 1880.) 
Abstract in University of Virginia Magazine, Apr. 1880, 
vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 448-450. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 60-62. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Mr. Gladstone; a character sketch. (Signed “Atticus.’’) 
University of Virginia Magazine, Apr. 1880, vol. 19, no. 
7; Pp. 401-426. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 63-88. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1882. (Statement regarding the tariff, made in Atlanta, Georgia, 

Sept. 22, 1882, before the tariff commission appointed 
under act of Congress approved May 15, 1882.) 

United States, 47th Congress, 2d session, House miscel- 
laneous documents, vol. 3; Report of the Tariff Com- 
mission, vol. 2, pp. 1294-1297. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 89-94. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1884. Committee or cabinet government? 
Overland Monthly, Jan. 1884, series 2, vol. 3, pp. 17-33. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. I, pp. 95-129. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1885. CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT: A StTupy IN AMERICAN 
Po.itTics. 
Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1885 (Jan. 24). 
(Twenty-nine impressions printed 1885-1924; new 
preface added to fifteenth impression, Nov. 1900.) 


478 
1886. 


1887. 


1888. 


1889. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Responsible government under the Constitution. 
Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 1886, vol. 57, pp. 542-553. 
Also, somewhat altered and with title Government un- 
der the Constitution, in An old master and other 
political essays, 1893, pp. 141-181. 


Of the study of politics. 
New Princeton Review, Mar. 1887, vol. 3, pp. 188-199. 
Also, with title The study of politics, in An old master 
and other political essays, 1893, pp. 31-57. 
The study of administration. 
Political Science Quarterly, June 1887, vol. 2, pp. 197- 
222; 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 130-158. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Woodrow Wilson’s letter to Almont Barnes, together with 
the article under discussion, ““The Study of Adminis- 
tration.” Privately printed. 1924. 


Taxation and appropriation. 

The national revenues: a collection of papers by Ameri- 
can economists. Edited by Albert Shaw. Chicago, 
A. C. McClurg & Co., 1888 (June 15), pp. 106-111. 

An old master. (Adam Smith.) 

New Princeton Review, Sept. 1888, vol. 6, pp. 210-220. 

Also in An old master and other political essays, 1893, 
pp. 3-28. 

Bryce’s “American Commonwealth.” 

Political Science Quarterly, Mar. 1889, vol. 4, pp. 153- 
169. 

Also in:——Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 159-178. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address, April 30, 1889, centennial celebration of Washing- 
ton’s inauguration. Original written manuscript in 
Mrs. Wilson’s possession. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 179-186. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

THE STATE: ELEMENTS OF HisToRICAL AND PRACTICAL POLI- 
TICS. 

Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1889 (Oct. 11). 

(Revised and rewritten 1898; chapter on Norway and 
Sweden revised by C. H. MclIlwain, 1910. Special 
revision by Edward Elliott, 1918. “A reprint of the 
book has been made practically every year since 1889.” 
—Statement by the publishers.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 479 


Character of democracy in the United States. 
Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1889, vol. 64, pp. 577-588. 
Also, somewhat altered, in An old master and other po- 
litical essays, 1893, pp. 99-138. 
THE STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES: a brief manual for schools and colleges. 
Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. (Novy. 11, 1889). 
(Reprinted 1889, 1890, 1891, 1908, 1912, some of the 
issues bearing the cover title The United States goy- 
ernment. This book is a reprint of chapter eleven of 
The state; elements of historical and practical politics, 
edition of 1889.) 


1890-1. The English Constitution. 
Chautauquan, Oct., Nov., Dec. 1890, Jan. 1891, vol. 12, 
PP. 5-9, 149-154, 293-298, 430-434. 


1891. A system of political science and constitutional law. (A re- 

view of Political science and comparative constitutional 
law, by John W. Burgess. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1891. 
Unsigned. ) 

Atlantic Monthly, May 1891, vol. 67, pp. 694-699. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 187-197. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

The author himself. 
Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1891, vol. 68, pp. 406-413. 
Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 28- 


49. 

Extracts in Public Opinion, Aug. 29, 1891, vol. 11, p. 
518, and in Review of Reviews (American), Oct. 1891, 
vol. 4, p. 333. 

(A review of) Studies in constitutional law: France—Eng- 
land—United States, by Emile Boutmy. ‘Translated 
by E. M. Dicey, with an introduction by A. V. Dicey. 
New York, Macmillan & Co., 1891. 

Educational Review, Nov. 1891, vol. 2, pp. 392-393. 


1893. Division AND REUNION, 1829-1889. 

New York and London, Longmans, Green & Co., 
1893. 

Half-title: Epochs of American history (vol. 3). 

(Copyright Feb. 27, 1893, 1898, 1909, 1910. First edi- 
tion Mar. 1893; reprinted May 1893; Feb., Apr. [re- 
vised], and Aug. 1894; July 1895; Apr. 1896; Jan. and 
Oct. 1897; Apr. and July [revised] 1898; Jan. 1899; 
Apr. 1900; Mar. 1901; Mar. and Nov. 1902; Sept. 


480 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1904; Aug. 1905; May and Sept. 1906; June 1907; 
Jan. and May 1908; Jan. and Aug. [revised and en- 
larged by Edward S. Corwin] 1909; Oct. 1910; 
Mar. 1912; Aug. 1912; June 1914; May 1916; Apr. 
1918; Sept. 1920; Oct. 1921 with additional chapters 
by Edward S. Corwin, May 1923; Aug. 1924.) 

Mr. Cleveland’s cabinet. 

Review of Reviews (American), Apr. 1893, vol. 7, pp. 
286-297. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 198-222. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Should an antecedent liberal education be required of stu- 
dents in law, medicine, and theology? (Address de- 
livered at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 26, 
1893. Proceedings, N. Y., 1894, pp. 112-117.) 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. I, pp. 223-231. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

(A review of Abraham Lincoln, by John T. Morse, jr. Bos- 

ton, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893. Unsigned.) 
Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1893, vol. 72, pp. 268-271. 

(A review of Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner, vols. 3 
and 4, 1845-1874, by Edward L. Pierce. Boston, Rob- 
erts Brothers, 1893. Unsigned.) 

Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1893, vol. 72, pp. 271-272. 

(A review of History of the United States from the compro- 
mise of 1850, vol. 1 and 2, by James Ford Rhodes. 
N. Y., Harpers, 1893. Unsigned.) 

Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1893, vol. 72, pp. 272-274. 

An Otp Master aNp OTHER Potiticat Essays. 

New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893 (Oct. 11). 

Contents—An old master. (Adam Smith)—The study 
of politics——Political sovereignty——Character of de- 
mocracy in the United States—Government under the 
Constitution. 

“Mere literature.” 

Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1893, vol. 72, pp. 820-828. 
Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 1-27. 
Mr. Goldwin Smith’s “views” on our political history. 
Forum, Dec. 1893, vol. 16, pp. 489-499. 
Extract in Review of Reviews (American), Jan. 1894, 
vol. 9, pp. 94-95. 


1894. A calendar of great Americans. 


Forum, Feb. 1894, vol. 16, pp. 715-727. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 481 


Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 187- 
212; 

The legal education of undergraduates. (Address delivered 
at Saratoga Springs, Aug. 23, 1894.) 

American bar association. Report of the seventeenth 
annual meeting ... held at Saratoga Springs, New 
York, August 22, 23, and 24, 1894. Philadelphia, 
Dando Printing and Publishing Company, 1894. pp. 
439-451. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. I, pp. 232-245. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

University training and citizenship. 

Forum, Sept. 1894, vol. 18, pp. 107-116. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 246-258. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Extract in Review of Reviews (American), Oct. 1894, 
vol. 10, p. 430. 


1895. The course of American history. An address delivered at 
the semi-centennial anniversary of the New Jersey 

Historical Society, Newark, N. J.. May 16, 1895. 
Paterson, N. J., The Press Printing and Publishing Co., 


1898. 26 p. 
Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 213- 
245. 


In New Jersey Historical Society, Proceedings, second 
series, 1899, vol. 13, pp. 367-392. 

In New Jersey Historical Society, Collections, 1900, vol. 
8, pp. 181-206. 

In Modern Eloquence; editor, Thomas B. Reed... 
Philadelphia, John D. Morris & Co. (c1g00). Vol. 
9, pp. 1199-1218. 

Extract, with title The west in American history, in 
Library of the world’s best literature, ancient and mod- 
ern; Charles Dudley Warner, editor .. . New York, 
R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill (c1897). 30 vols. Vol. 27, 
pp. 16055-16060. 

Also, somewhat shortened and with title The proper 
perspective of American history, in Forum, July 1895, 
vol. 19, pp. 544-559. 

Extracts in Public Opinion, July 25, 1895, vol. 19, pp. 
105-106, and in Review of Reviews (American), Aug. 
1895, vol. 12, pp. 214-215. 

Address before the Society of Alumni (of the University of 
Virginia, June 12, 1895). 


482 


1896. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Abstract in Alumni bulletin, published quarterly by the 
faculty of the University of Virginia, July 1895, vol. 
2, no. 2, pp. 53-55- 

The proper perspective of American history. 

Forum, July 1895, vol. 19, pp. 544-559. (See, above, The 

course of American history.) 
On the writing of history. 

Century Magazine, Sept. 1895, vol. 50, pp. 787-793. 

Extract in Public Opinion, Sept. 26, 1895, vol. 19, pp. 
405-406. 

Also, with title The truth of the matter, in Mere litera- 
ture and other essays, 1896, pp. 161-186. 

Extract in Library of the World’s Best Literature, An- 
cient and Modern; Charles Dudley Warner, 
editor... New York, R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill 
(c1897). 30 vols. Vol. 27, pp. 16048-16054. 

A literary politician. (Walter Bagehot.) 

Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1895, vol. 76, pp. 668-680. 

Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 69- 
103. 


In Washington’s day. 
Harper's Magazine, Jan. 1896, vol. 92, pp. 169-189. 
Incorporated as chapter one of “GrorGE WASHINGTON,” 
1897 (c1896). 
Great leaders of political thought: syllabus. 
Philadelphia, American society for the extension of uni- 
versity teaching, 1895. (Copyright Jan. 30, 1896.) 
At head of title: University extension lectures. 
Contents:— Aristotle — Machiavelli — Montesquieu 
—Burke—De Tocqueville—Bagehot. 
On an author’s choice of company. 
Century Magazine, Mar. 1896, vol. 51, pp. 775-779. 
Also in Mere literature and other essays, 1896, pp. 50- 
68. 
Extract in Public Opinion, Mar. 26, 1896, vol. 20, pp. 
403-404. 
Colonel Washington. 
Harper’s Magazine, Mar. 1896, vol. 92, pp. 549-573. 
Incorporated as chapters two and three of “GEORGE 
WASHINGTON,” 1897 (c1896). 
At home in Virginia. 
Harper’s Magazine, May 1896, vol. 92, pp. 930-954. 
Incorporated as chapters four and five of “GEORGE 
WasHINGTON,” 1897 (c1896). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 483 


General Washington. 

Harper’s Magazine, July 1896, vol. 93, pp. 165-190. 
Incorporated as chapters six and seven of ‘GEORGE 
WASHINGTON,” 1897 (c1896). 

First in peace. 

Harper’s Magazine, Sept. 1896, vol. 93, pp. 489-512. 
Incorporated as chapters eight and nine of “GEORGE 
WASHINGTON,” 1897 (c1896). 

Princeton in the nation’s service. (Oration delivered at 
the Princeton sesquicentennial celebration, Oct. 21, 
1996. ) 

Forum, Dec. 1896, vol. 22, pp. 447-466. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 259-285. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Extracts in Science, Dec. 18, 1896, new series, vol. 4, 
pp. 908-910; in Review of Reviews (American), Jan. 
1897, vol. 15, pp. 83-85; in Electrical Engineering, 
May 15, 1897, vol. 9, pp. 121-124; and in Popular 
Science Monthly, July 1902, vol. 61, pp. 269-271. 

The first President of the United States. 

Harper’s Magazine, Nov. 1896, vol. 93, pp. 843-867. 

Incorporated as chapter ten of ‘““GzEoRGE WASHINGTON,” 
1897 (c1896). 

Mere LITERATURE AND OTHER Essays. 

Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896 (Nov. 7). 

(Five reprints have been made, the last in July 1912.) 

Contents—Mere literature—The author himself— 
On an author’s choice of company.—A literary poli- 
tician (Walter Bagehot)—The interpreter of Eng- 
lish liberty (Edmund Burke)—The truth of the 
matter—A calendar of great Americans.—The 
course of American history. 

Special limited edition, 1913. 

Grorce WASHINGTON .. . illustrated by Howard Pyle. 
New York and London, Harper & Brothers, 1897. 

(Copyright Dec. 17, 1896.) 

(Popular edition, May 3, 1900.) 

Our ancestral responsibilities, speech at the seventeenth 
annual dinner of the New England Society in 
Brooklyn, New York, Dec. 21, 1896, in Modern 
Eloquence, Editor Thomas B. Reed, Philadelphia, 
John D. Morris & Co. (c1900), vol. 3, pp. 1248- 
1252. 

The west as a field for historical study. Remarks (on a 
paper by Frederick J. Turner, read at the twelfth 


4 


484 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


annual meeting of the American Historical Association 
in New York, Dec. 29-31, 1896). 

American Historical Association. Annual report... 
for the year 1896. Washington, Government Print- 
ing Office, 1897. 2 vols. Vol. 1, pp. 292-296. 


1897. Mr. Cleveland as President. 

Atlantic Monthly, Mar. 1897, vol. 79, pp. 289-300. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 286-309. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Extract in Review of Reviews (American), Mar. 1897, 
VOLTS e2 7. 

The making of the nation. 

Atlantic Monthly, July 1897, vol. 80, pp. 1-14. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 310-335. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Extract in Review of Reviews (American), July 1897, 
vol. 16, pp. 69-70. 

Leaderless government. Annual address delivered ... at 
the ninth annual meeting (of the Virginia State Bar 
Association) held at the Hot Springs of Virginia, 
August 3, 4 and 5, 1897. 

Richmond, James E. Goode Printing Co., 1897. 

Also in Virginia Law Register, Sept. 1897, vol. 3, pp. 
337-354. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 336-359. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

On being human. 

Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1897, vol. 80, pp. 320-329. 

Extracts in Public Opinion, Sept. 23, 1897, vol. 23, pp. 
406-407, and in Current Literature, Feb. 1898, vol. 
23, Pp. 149-150. 

Published as a book. N. Y., Harpers, 1916, 54 p. 


1898 <A lawyer with a style. (Sir Henry Maine.) 
Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1898, vol. 82, pp. 363-374. 
A wit and a seer. (Walter Bagehot.) 
Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1898, vol. 82, pp. 527-540. 


1899 Our last frontier. Address . .. at a meeting in the inter- 
ests of Berea College, at the Brick Church (Dr. van 
Dyke’s), New York, Jan. 1899. 
Berea Quarterly, May 1899, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 5-6. 
Spurious versus real patriotism in education. (Address de- 
livered at the fourteenth annual meeting of the New 
England Association of Colleges and Preparatory 


1900. 


1901. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 485 


Schools, Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 13, 1899. Proceed- 


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Also in:—School Review, Dec. 1899, vol. 7, pp. 599-620. 


(Presentation of the Hon. John Hay, Secretary of State, 

' for the degree of doctor of laws of Princeton Uni- 
versity, Oct. 20, 1900.) 

Princeton University Bulletin, Nov. 1900, vol. 12, no. 1, 


Derl2: 
Speech (delivered in New York city before the New Eng- 

land Society, Dec. 22, 1900). 

New England Society. Ninety-fifth anniversary celebra- 
tion ... in the city of New York . . . December 22, 
1900. (New York, printed by William Green), n. d. 
Pp. 39-49. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. I, pp. 360-367. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


The reconstruction of the southern states. 
Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1901, vol. 87, pp. 1-15. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 368-395. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
The iaohiosa che of Bedieuin Franklin, with an in- 
troduction by W. Wilson. New York, The Century 
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Colonies and nation: a short history of the people of the 
United States. 
Harper's Magazine, Jan. to May 1901, vol. 102, pp. 
173-203, 334-369, 529-554, 709-735, 902-918; June to 
Nov. 1901, vol. 103, pp. 115-130, 285-300, 465-474, 
638-654, 791-807, 933-943. 
In revised form in volumes one and two of A history of 
the American people, 1902. 
Democracy and efficiency. 
Atlantic Monthly, Mar. 1901, vol. 87, pp. 289-299. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 396-415. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
When a man comes to himself. 
Century Magazine, June 1901, vol. 62, pp. 268-275. 
Published as a book, New York, Harper & Brothers, 
1915, 37 p. 
Edmund Burke and the French revolution. 
Century Magazine, Sept. 1901, vol. 62, pp. 784-792. 
(Address in memory of President William McKinley, given 
in Alexander Hall, Princeton, Sept. 19, 1901.) 


486 


1902. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Princeton University Bulletin, Oct. 1901, vol. 13, no. 1, 
pp. 5-6. 

The real idea of Democracy: a talk. 

Problems in modern democracy. (Philadelphia, The 
Booklovers’ Library, entered for copyright Nov. 2, 
1901.) pp. 57-67. 

The coming of peace. 

Harper’s Magazine, Dec. 1901, vol. 104, pp. 104-110, 

Incorporated in A history of the American people, 1902, 
vol. 3, chap. I, pp. I-30. 

The significance of American history. 

Preface, vol. 1, pp. 27-32, of Harper’s Encyclopedia of 
American History. New York, Harper & Brothers, 
1902. 10 vols. (Entered for copyright Nov. 22, 1901; 
volumes one to five published Dec. 3, 1901, volumes 
six to ten Apr. 1902. New and revised edition Oct. 
1912.) 

The ideals of America. (Address delivered on the one hun- 
dred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the battle of 
Trenton, Dec. 26, 1901.) 

Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1902, vol. 90, pp. 721-734. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 416-442. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


Address (delivered at the Johns Hopkins University Feb. 21, 
1902). 

Johns Hopkins University. Celebration of the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the founding of the university and 
inauguration of Ira Remsen, LL.D., as president of 
the university, February twenty-first and twenty- 
second, 1902. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 
(1902), pp. 37-43. 

Early migrations westward. 

Harper’s Magazine, Sept. 1902, vol. 105, pp. 586-591. 

Incorporated in A history of the American people, 1902, 
vol. 3, chap. 2, pp. 38-66. 

Princeton for the nation’s service. An address delivered on 
the occasion of his inauguration as president of Prince- 
ton University on October twenty-fifth, MCMII, by 
Woodrow Wilson. 

Princeton, Printed not published (The Gilliss Press), 
1903. 

Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, Nov. 1, 1902, vol. 
3, no. 6, pp. 89-98, and in Princeton University Bul- 
letin, Dec. 1902, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 17-33. 


1903. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 487 


Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 443-461. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
A History oF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE .. . illustrated. 
New York and London, Harper & Brothers, 1902 (Oct. 
28). 5 vols. 
(An alumni edition of 350 copies, a subscription library 
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28, 1902; in 1910 a popular edition was published. 
Documentary edition 1918, 10 v.) 
Relation of university education to commerce. 
(Chicago, Geo. E. Cole & Co.), 1902. 
(Address delivered before the Commercial Club of Chi- 
cago at its 17Ist regular meeting, Nov. 29, 1902.) 
Speech ... at the Princeton dinner given at the Waldorf- 
Astoria, Dec. 9, 1902. 
(New York, Evening Post Job Printing House, 1902.) 
Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, Dec. 13, 1902, vol. 
3, no. 12, pp. 199-204. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 462-473. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


State rights (1850-1860). 

Cambridge modern history. Cambridge University 
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1903 (June 23), chap. 13, pp. 405-442. 

State education: its relations to political life and develop- 
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Club, Boston, Mass., Jan. 3, 1903. Printed in part in 
The Boston Transcript, Jan. 3, 1903, p. 3. 

Epitaph for his father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, in:— 
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John Wesley’s place in history. (Address delivered June 30, 
1903 in Middletown, Conn.) 

Wesleyan University. Wesley bicentennial ... (1703- 
1903). Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University, 
1904, pp. 156-170. 

Reprinted, N. Y., The Abingdon Press [1915], 48 p. 

The statesmanship of letters. (Address delivered Nov. 5, 
1903, in Pittsburgh.) 

Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. The eighth celebration 
of founder’s day ... (Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Print- 
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Extract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Nov. 14, 1903, vol. 
4, no. 7, pp. 117-119. 


488 


1904. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Civic patriotism. An address before the Passaic (N. J.) 
Chamber of Commerce, Dec. 1903; in:—Passaic Daily 
News, Dec. 4, 1903; also in:—Passaic Daily Herald, 
Dec. 4, 1903. 

The college course and methods of instruction, an address, 
Dec. 12, 1903 in Annual report of the Schoolmaster 
Association, New York and vicinity. 1903-1904, pp. 
45-65. 


The revision of the courses of study ... Address at the 
alumni luncheon in the new gymnasium (Princeton), 
June 14, 1904. 

Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 18, 1904, vol. 4, no. 36, 
pp. 604-606. 

Address delivered at the Nott memorial celebration at 
Union College at Schenectady, New York, Sept. 29, 
1904. 

Union University Quarterly, vol. 1, pp. 181-186. 

The variety and unity of history. (Address of the chair- 
man of the section on historical science.) Congress 
of arts and science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 
1904. 

Edited by H. J. Rogers, vol. 2, pp. 3-20, Boston, 
Houghton, 1905-1907. 

The young people and the church . . . An address delivered 
before the fortieth annual convention of the Pennsyl- 
vania State Sabbath School Association at Pittsburgh, 
October 13, 1904. 

Philadelphia, The Sunday School Times Company, 1905. 
(Entered for copyright Dec.’ 23, 1904.) 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 474-486. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

An address delivered before Cooper Union, N. Y. City, 
Nov. 19, 1904, in New York Times, Nov. 20, 1904, 


Dp. 5. 

Address of welcome, Nov. 25, 1904, in:—Proceedings of 
18th Annual Convention of the Assoc. of Coll. and 
Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Mary- 
land, 1905, pp. 5-8. 

On the political future of the south. (Address at the third 
annual dinner of the Society of the Virginians, New 
York City, Nov. 29, 1904.) 

Extract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Dec. 3, 1904, vol. 
5, no. 10, pp. 160-161. 


1905. 


1906. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 489 


Annual report of the president of Princeton University, 1904. 
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(Presented to the trustees of the university at their 
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Also in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Dec. 17, 1904, Jan. 7 
and 21, 1905, vol. 5, nos. 12, 13, 15, pp. 195-198, 215- 
220, 252-253. 
Statement of the Tutorial system. Princeton Alumni Weekly, 
vol. 5, p. 335. 


(Address delivered before the Princeton Club of western 
Pennsylvania, Mar. 18, 1905.) 
Extract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 25, 1905, vol. 
5, no. 24, pp. 406-407. 
(Introduction. ) 
The Handbook of Princeton, by John Rogers Williams 
. . « New York, The Grafton Press (June 8, 1905). 
pp. XI-XVil. . 
Plan for the development of Princeton. 
Daily Princetonian, Mar. 30, 1905, vol. 30, pp. 1 and 4. 
Practical journalism in university life. 
Daily Princetonian, Apr. 17, 1905, vol. 30, p. I. 
Quotations in Princeton Alumni Weekly, vol. 5, pp. 
471-472. 
The new system to be introduced (at Princeton). 
Daily Princetonian, Apr. 28, 1905, vol. 30, p. I. 
New plans for Princeton. 
Harper’s Weekly, June 24, 1905, vol. 49, p. 904. 
The Princeton preceptorial system 
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vol. 1, pp. 487-490. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Annual report of the president of Princeton University, 1905. 
(Princeton), n. d. 
(Presented to the trustees of the university at their 
meeting Dec. 14, 1905.) 
Also in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Jan. 6 and 13, 1906, 
vol. 6, nos. 13 and 14, pp. 232-234, 252-256. 


Notes on constitutional government. 
(Princeton), Printed for Princeton University store, 
(1906). 
(Reprinted 1909.) 
The Minister and the Community. Address at the third 
annual Conference of Eastern college men concerning 
the Christian ministry, Hartford, Conn.’ Mar. 30, 


490 


1907. 


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1906, Printed in part in the Hartford Seminary Rec- 
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Newness of spirit. Abstract of an address before the Phila- 
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Jan. 12, 1906, vol. 30, p. I. 

The spirit of Jefferson. (Address delivered at Jefferson day 
dinner of Democratic Club of New York, April 16, 
1906. ) 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Apr. 28, 1906, 
vol. 6, no. 29, pp. 551-554. 
(Address delivered before the Western Association of 
Princeton Clubs, Cleveland, Ohio, May 19, 1906.) 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 2, 1906, vol. 6, no. 34, 
pp. 651-655. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 491-498. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Communication to the gentlemen of the graduating class, 


June, 1906. 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 16, 1906, vol. 6, p. 
694. 
Annual report of the president of Princeton University, 
1906. 


(Princeton), n. d. 

(Presented to the trustees of the university at their 
meeting Dec. 13, 1906.) 

Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, Jan. 19 and 26, 1907, 
vol. 7, nos. 15 and 16, pp. 254-258, 273-275. 

Patriotism: (address delivered before the Southern So- 

ciety, December 14, 1906. Close manuscripts, Prince- 
ton University Library. 


Tue Free Lire... a baccalaureate address. 

New York, T. Y. Crowell & Co. (Aug. 6, 1908). 
(Address delivered before the graduating class of 
Princeton University June 9, 1907.) 

Grover Cleveland (address on Grover Cleveland’s 7oth 
birthday March 17, 1907). Close manuscripts, 
Princeton University Library. 

Report on the social co-ordination of the university (sub- 
mitted to the trustees of Princeton University at their 
meeting June 10, 1907). 

Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 12, 1907, vol. 7, no. 36, 
pp. 606-615. 

Also separately reprinted from Princeton Alumni 
Weekly; at head of title: Princeton University. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 491 


Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 1, pp. 499-521. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
The author and signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
(Address delivered at Jamestown Exposition, Norfolk, 
Virginia, July 4, 1907.) 
North American Review, Sept. 1907, vol. 186, pp. 22-33. 
The residential quad system. (Letter to Mr. Andrew C. 
Imbrie, dated July 29, 1907.) 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, Sept. 25, 1907, vol. 8, no. 1, 
pp. 8-9. 
Politics. (1857-1907.) 
Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1907, vol. 100, pp. 635-646. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vols 2))pp.1-23-  NaY., Harpers1925: 
Address (delivered before the Princeton Alumni Association 
of Tennessee at Memphis, Tenn., Nov. 9, 1907). 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, Nov. 20, 1907, vol. 8, no. 9, 
pp. 138-141. 
Ideals of public life. (Address delivered at the fifty-eighth 
annual dinner of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, 
Nov. 16, 1907.) 
The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. Sixtieth year. 
April, 1908. n. p. (1908), pp. 218-230. 
Abstract also in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Nov. 27, 
1907, vol. 8, no. 10, pp. 160-162. 
Interviews. New York Times Nov. 24 and Nov. 26, 
1907. 
Response to address of welcome. (Nov. 29, 1907.) 
Association of colleges and preparatory schools of the 
Middle States and Maryland. Proceedings of the 
twenty-first annual convention . . . 1907, held at the 
College of the City of New York ... November 29 
and 30, 1907 n. p., published by the association, 1908. 
pp. 7-8. 
School and college. (President’s address, Nov. 29, 1907.) 
Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the 
Middle States and Maryland. Proceedings of the 
twenty-first annual convention . . . 1907, held at the 
College of the City of New York .. . November 29 
and 30, 1907. n. p., published by the association, 1908, 
pp. 73-89. 
Address (delivered before the Indiana State Teachers’ Asso- 
ciation in Indianapolis, Dec. 27, 1907). 
Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Jan. 8, 1908, vol. 
8, no. 14, pp. 224-225. 


492 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1908. Annual report of the president of Princeton University, 1907. 
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1908?) 
(Presented to the trustees of the university at their 

meeting Jan. 9, 1908.) 

Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, Jan. 22, 1908, vol. 
8, no. 16, pp. 257-259. 

Speech (delivered at the annual dinner of the Princeton 
Club of Chicago, Mar. 12, 1908). 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 25, 1908, 
vol. 8, no. 25, pp. 402-405. 

Government by commission. Abstract from address . 
before the Commercial Club of Chicago, March 14, 
1908. 

n. p. (1908). 

Abstract, with title The government and business, in 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 18, 1908, vol. 8, no. 
24, pp. 386-389. 

Abstract with title The government and business. Daily 
Princetonian, Mar. 16, 1908, vol. 33, p. 1. (Differs 
from Alumni Weekly.) Also speech with same title 
delivered at Pittsburgh Traffic Club, April 3, 1908. 
Close manuscripts at Princeton University. 

The training of intellect. An address before the Yale 
Phi Beta Kappa Society, March 18, 1908. In:—The 
Yale Alumni Weekly, vol. 17, pp. 637-639, 
1908. 

Also in:—O’Neill, Modern Short Speeches, N. Y., Cen- 
tury Company, 1924, pp. 261-267. 

Law or personal power. Address delivered at the National 
Democratic Club, New York, Apr. 13, 1908. In:— 
Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), vol. 2, 
pp. 24-31. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. Abstract in Daily 
Princetonian Apr. 14, 1908, vol. 38. 

The states and the federal government. 

North American Review, May 1908, vol. 187, pp. 684- 
701. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 32-53. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address at the Pittsburgh dinner (of the Princeton Club 
of western Pennsylvania, May 2, 1908). 

Extract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 13, 1908, vol. 
8, no. 32, pp. 520-522. 

Address (delivered at the annual dinner of the Princeton 
Alumni Association of New England in Boston, May 
15, 1908). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 493 


Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 3, 1908, vol. 

8, no. 35, pp. 568-569. 
CoNSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. 

New York, The Columbia University Press, 1908 (May 
29). 

Half-title: Columbia University Lectures. George Blu- 
menthal Foundation. 1907. 

(Reprinted Nov. 1911; Jan. 1913; Dec. 1914; Oct. 1917; 
Nov. 1921.) 

Baccalaureate address, June 7, 1908. Reported in part in 
Daily Princetonian, June 10, 1908, vol. 33. Also 
original copy among Close manuscripts Princeton 
University. 

Address .. . in behalf of the honorable delegates. 

Williams College. The induction of Harry Augustus 
Garfield, LL.D., into the office of president, October 
seventhh MDCCCCVIII. (Cambridge, Mass.), 
Printed at the Riverside Press, (1909?). pp. 22-26. 

The banker and the nation. (Address delivered at the an- 
nual convention of the American Bankers’ Association 
at Denver, Colorado, Sept. 30, 1908. Proceedings, 
N. Y., 1908, pp. 226-235.) 

Also in:—United States, Congressional Record, 62d Con- 
gress, 2d session, Aug. 8, 1912, vol. 48, pt. 12, appendix, 
Pp. 502-503. 

Also in:—Moody’s Magazine, Oct. 1908, vol. 6, pp. 
250-253. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 54-63. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

The life of the college . . . address at the seventy-fifth an- 
niversary of Haverford College (at Haverford, Pa., 
Oct. 16, 1908. Haverford College Bulletin, vol. 7, 
pp. 8-17. 1909.) 

Princeton Alumni Weekly, Oct. 28, 1908, vol. 9, no. 5, 
pp. 70-72. 

Conservatism, true and false. (Address delivered before 
the Southern Society of New York, Dec. 9, 1908. 
Yearbook 1909-10, pp. 17-25. 1909.) 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Dec. 16, 1908, vol. 
9, no. 12, pp. 185-189. 

Abstract in Daily Princetonian, Dec. 10, 1908, vol. 33, 
Deak. 

1909. The meaning of a liberal education. (Address delivered 
betore the High School Teachers’ Association of New 
York City, Jan. 9, 1909.) 


494 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


High School Teachers’ Association of New York City. 
Vol. 3, 1908-1909. n. p., (1909). pp. 19-31. 
Annual report of the president of Princeton University, 1908. 

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1909?) 

(Presented to the trustees of the university at their 
meeting Jan. 14, 1909.) 

Also in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Jan. 27, 1909, vol. 9, 
no. 16, pp. 247-250. 

Address (delivered at Chapel Hill, N. C., on the anniversary 

of Robert E. Lee’s birthday, Jan. 19, 1909). 

University of North Carolina Record, May 1909, no. 73, 
Alumni Bulletin no. 2. Anniversary of Lee’s birthday. 
pp. 6-21. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 64-82. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Abstract in Daily Princetonian, Jan. 20, 1909, vol. 33, 
p. I. 

Robert E. Lee; an interpretation. Chapel Hill, N. C. 
1924. vi, 42 p. 

The minister and the community. 

New York, Student Young Men’s Christian Association, 
1909 (Jan. 25). 
(The claims and opportunities of the Christian ministry 
. edited by J. R. Mott.) 
Reprinted 1912. 30 p. 

The centenary of Abraham Lincoln. (Address at the one 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin- 
coln, Chicago, Feb. 12, 1909. In:—Abraham Lin- 
coln; the tribute of a century. Chicago, 1910, pp. 
14-30.) 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 83-101. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Feb. 17, 1909, vol. 
9, no. 19, pp. 296-298. 

Civic problems; address delivered March 9, 1909, at the 

annual meeting of the Civic League of St. Louis. 

(St. Louis), The Civic League of St. Louis, (1900). 15 p. 

Also in United States, Congressional Record, 62d Con- 
gress, Ist session, Aug. 19, 1911, vol. 47, pt. 5, pp. 
4202-4205. 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 17, 1909, 
vol. 9, no. 23, p. 359. 

Our country and our day. Speech. in:—Year Book of 
the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, N. Y., 1909, pp. 
28-33. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 495 


Baccalaureate address, June 13, 1909, in Daily State Ga- 
zette, Trenton, New Jersey, June 14, 1909 (without 
opening and closing paragraphs). 

The concluding paragraphs in Princeton Alumni Weekly, 
June 16, 1909, vol. 9, pp. 572-573. 

Reported in part in Daily Princetonian June 15, 1909, 
vol. 34. 

The present task of the ministry. An address at the cele- 
bration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Hartford 
theological seminary. 

(Address delivered May 26, 1909.) 

Hartford, Conn., Hartford Seminary Press, 1909. Pp. 
64-71. 

Also in:—Hartford Seminary Record, July 1909, vol. 19, 
no. 3, pp. 226-233. 

Also as pamphlet. Hartford. 1909. 10 p. 

The spirit of learning. (Oration delivered before the Har- 
vard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Sanders Theatre, 
Cambridge, July 1, 1909.) 

Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, Sept. 1909, vol. 18, no. 
69, pp. I-14. 

Also in Foerster, Norman ed. Essays for College Men. 
N:-Y.,) Henry, Holt -& Co; ° 1913. pp. 3-2’. 

Also in:—Representative Phi Beta Kappa Orations. 
Boston, Houghton-Mifflin, 1915, pp. 466-480. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 102-119. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

The tariff make-believe. 

North American Review, Oct. 1909, vol. 190, pp. 535-556. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 120-146. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address at the inauguration of Ernest Fox Nichols D.Sc., 
LL.D., as president of Dartmouth College. October 
14,1909. In The Inauguration of Ernest Fox Nichols 

. as president of Dartmouth College. Hanover, 

N. H. 1909. 

Also in:—O’Neill, Modern Short Speeches, N. Y., Cen- 
tury, 1924, pp. 202-257. 

My ideal of the true university. 

Delineator, Nov. 1909, vol. 74, p. 401. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 147-159. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

What is a college for? 

Scribner’s Magazine. Nov. 1909, vol. 46, pp. 570- 


577: 


496 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Also in:—Foerster, Essays for College Men, 2nd series, 
N. Y., 1915, pp. 3-27. Also as a book. N. Y., Scrib- 
ners, I9I5, 19 p. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 160-177. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

The ministry and the individual. (Address delivered in 
Chicago, Nov. 2, 1909.) 

McCormick theological seminary. Historical celebra- 
tion in recognition of the eightieth year of the origin 
of the seminary, the fiftieth year of its location in 
Chicago, and the one hundredth year of the birth of 
Cyrus H. McCormick, November 1 and 2, 1909. 
Chicago, Illinois (Lakeside Press), 1910. pp. 163- 
173. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 178-187. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Political Reform. (Address at City Club Philadelphia, Nov. 
18, 1909.) Close manuscripts at Princeton University 
Library. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 

vol. 2, pp. 188-192. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1910. Position and importance of the arts course as distinct from 
the professional and semi-professional courses. (Ad- 
dress delivered Jan. 5, 1910.) 

Association of American Universities. Journal of pro- 
ceedings and addresses of the eleventh annual confer- 
ence, held in Madison, Wisconsin, January 4 and 5, 
1910. (Chicago), published by the association, 1910. 
pp. 73-84. 
Extract also in Columbia University Quarterly, Mar. 
1910, vol. 12, pp. 210-213. 
Annual reports of the president and the treasurer (1909). 
Official register of Princeton University, Jan. 1910, vol. 
I, no. 3. Report of the president, pp. 3-33. 
(Presented to the trustees of Princeton University at 
their meeting Jan. 13, 1910.) 
Address by Woodrow Wilson at the banquet of the advo- 
cates of the short ballot, Hotel Astor, New York, 
Jan. 21, 1910. Reported in part in Daily Prince- 
tonian, Jan. 22, 1910, vol. 34. 
Address at the inauguration of Dr. Henry H. Apple as 
president of Franklin and Marshall College. Janu- 
ary 10, 1910. In Lancaster New Era, February 9, 


1924, P. 7- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 497 


Baltimore address (delivered before the Princeton Alumni 
Association of Maryland, Mar. 11, 1910). 
Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 16, 1910, 
vol. 10, no. 23, pp. 371-374. 
Mr. Cleveland as President. (Address delivered Mar. 18, 
1910.) 
National Democratic Club, New York. Annual dinner 
on the birthday of Grover Cleveland, March 18, 1910, 
at the club house. N. p. (1910), pp. 29-34. 
Brooklyn speech (delivered before the Princeton Alumni 
Association of Long Island, Mar. 21, 1910). 
Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 23, 1910, 
vol. 10, no. 24, pp. 394-396. 
St. Louis speech (delivered before the Western Association 
of Princeton Clubs, Mar. 26, 1910). 
Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mar. 30, 1910, 
vol. 10, no. 25, pp. 412-415. ; 
Address at the Princeton Club of New York (Apr. 7, 1910). 
Princeton Alumni Weekly, Apr. 13, 1910, vol. 10, no. 
27, PP. 447-453. 
Living principles of Democracy. 
Harper’s Weekly, Apr. 9, 1910, vol. 54, pp. 9-10. 
' Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
VOl. 2; pps 7193-201, 8 IN: Y., ELatpers;! 1925: 
(Address delivered before the Princeton Alumni Association 
of Western Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh, Apr. 16, 
IQIO.) 
In:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 202-203. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Apr. 20, 1910, vol. 
10, no. 28, pp. 470-471. Also in Pittsburgh Dispatch 
April 17, 1910. 
Culture and democracy. (Letter addressed ‘““To the editor 
of the Nation” and dated April 21, 1910.) 
Nation, Apr. 28, 1910, vol. 90, p. 428. 
Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, Apr. 27, 1910, vol. 
10, no. 29, pp. 479-480. 
Hide-and-seek politics. 
North American Review, May 1910, vol. 191, pp. 585- 
601. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875- 
LOTS) evo 20). pp, 1204-22400 NIMOY. oh arpers, 
1925. 
Address (delivered before the New Jersey Bankers’ Asso- 
ciation at Atlantic City, May 6, 1910). 


498 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


New Jersey Bankers’ Association. Proceedings of the 
seventh annual convention . .. edited by William J. 
Field. N. p. (1910?), pp. 81-87. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 225-233. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address (delivered before the Princeton Club of Chicago, 
May 12, 1910). 

Abstract in Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 18, 1910, vol. 
10, no. 32, Pp. 533-534- 

Address to the trustees of Princeton University, June 9, 
1910. Daily Princetonian, June 11, 1910, vol. 35. 

Also in:—Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 15, 1910, vol. 
10, pp. 598-599. 

Address at the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of 
Lawrenceville School, June 11, 1910. Close manu- 
scripts at Princeton University. 

Baccalaureate address, June 12, 1910. In:—Public papers; 
College and State (1875-1913), vol. 2, pp. 234-244. 
N. Y., Harpers, 1925. Reported in part in Daily 
Princetonian, June 14, 1910, vol. 35. 

Address at the alumni luncheon, Princeton University, June 
14, 1910. Reported in part Princeton Alumni Weekly, 
June 15, 1910, vol. 10, pp. 604-605. 

The lawyer and the community. Annual address (delivered 
before the American Bar Association at Chattanooga, 
Tennessee, Aug. 31, I9I0). 

American Bar Association. Report of the thirty- 
third annual meeting . . . held at Chattanooga, 
Tennessee, Aug. 30 and 31 and Sept. 1, I910. 
Baltimore, The Lord Baltimore Press, 1910. pp. 
419-439. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 245-268. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Substance also in North American Review, Nov. 1910, 
vol. 192, pp. 604-622. 

Extract in Review of Reviews (American), Nov. 1910, 
vol. 42, pp. 602-603. 

Life and education. 

Nassau Literary Magazine, Oct. 1910, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 
167-169. 

(Letter, resigning the presidency of the university, read to 
the trustees of Princeton University at their meeting 
Oct. 20, 1910.) 

Princeton Alumni Weekly, Oct. 26, 1910, vol. 11, no. 5, 
p. 68. 


1910. 


IQII. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 499 


Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
Vole. p.-2090.. HIN 7 Ys Harpers 1925, 
Address at city hall auditorium, Rutherford, New Jersey, 
Wct.27,,1910. 9 N.)p;, n.ds 210: p: 


To outgoing and incoming executives of the sister states. 
Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 3, 1910, v. 54:8. 


Address in support of Mr. Martine for senator, Jersey City, 
Jan. 5, 1911. 

Independent, Jan. 12, 1911, v. 70:66-67. (Brief ex- 
tract. ) 

Inaugural address as governor of New Jersey, Jan. 17, 1911. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, pp. 58-68. 
Also reprint. ‘Trenton, 1911. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 270-282. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

The law and the facts. 

American Political Science Review, Feb. 1911, v. 5: I-II. 

Message to the senate of New Jersey, Mar. 20, 1911. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, p. 397. 

Message to the legislature of New Jersey, Mar. 20, 1911. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, p. 401. 

Address delivered at the dinner of the Democratic Club in 
Philadelphia on Feb. 21, 1911. 

Letter to Professor J. R. S. Sterrett, 1911, in A call of 
contemporary society for research in Asia Minor and 
Syria. New York [1911] p. 173. 

Message to the senate of New Jersey, Mar. 31, 1911. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, pp. 
602-603. 

Politics and morals, address before the Free Synagogue. 
New York, April, 1911, in New York Tribune March 
8, 1924. 

Message to the senate of New Jersey, Apr. 4, I9II. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for I9QI1, pp. 
639-640. 

Message to the senate of New Jersey, Apr. 12, 1911. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, pp. 
768-770. 

Message to the legislature of New Jersey, Apr. 19, 1911. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1911, pp. 
975-976. 

Issues of Freedom. (Address at Kansas City, May 5, 

1911.) 


500 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 283-290. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Also reported in:—Kansas City Journal and Kansas City 
Times for May 6, 1911. 

The Bible and progress; address in the Auditorium, Denver, 
Colo., on the occasion of the Tercentenary celebration 
of the translation of the Bible into the English lan- 
guage, May 7, 1911. (New York, Globe Litho., 
IQII.) 

Published also by the Government Printing Office, 1912. 

And in:—Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 
48, app. 499-502. 

Also in:—The Churchman, Feb. 16, 1924, pp. II- 
13. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 291-302. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

(Reprinted in whole or in part by many religious maga- 
zines. ) 

James Kerney. Woodrow Wilson, governor. (Containing 
extracts from Wilson’s recent public utterances.) 

Independent, May 11, 1911, v. 70: 986-989. 

Democracy’s opportunity. Address at Harrisburg, Pa., 
June 15, 1911. In:—Congressional Record, vol. 48, 
app. pp. 519-520. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 303-309. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

True Americanism [by] Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Democratic 
governor of New Jersey; an editorial from the Phila- 
delphia North American, July 6, 1911. (New York 
city, IQII.) 

Extracts, grouped together from fifteen of the author’s 
public addresses. 

The lawyer in politics; address before the Kentucky Bar 
Association, Lexington, Ky., July 12, 1911. (New 
York, Globe Litho., 1911.) 4 p. 

Published also in:—Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d 
sess., v. 48, app. 498-499. 

And in:—Medico-legal Journal, Sept. 1911, v. 29:53- 
56. 

And in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 310-317. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Woodrow Wilson’s views; an interview by Henry Beach 
Needham. 

Outlook, Aug. 26, 1911, v. 98: 939-951. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 501 


Address at Red Bank, New Jersey, Oct. 11, 1911. 
Independent, Oct. 19, 1911, v. 71:840. (Extract in 
which Mr. Wilson denounces the Taft administra- 
tion. ) 

The social center a means of common understanding; an 
address before the first National conference on civic 
and social center development, at Madison, Wis., Oct. 
25, 1911 .. . Madison, The University, 1911. 

(Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, serial no. 470: 
General series, no. 306.) 

Reprinted on pp. 5-11 of:— 

U. S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the District of 
Columbia. 

Regulating the use of public school buildings and 
grounds in the District of Columbia... Report. 
(To accompany S. 4316.) (Washington, 1914.) 

(63d Cong., 2d sess. Senate. Rept. 391.) 

The Training of intellect. In Great speeches and how to 
make them by Grenville Kleiser. New York, 1911, 
Pp. 203-209. 

The need of citizenship organization. 

American City, Nov. 1911, v. 5:265-268. 

Rights of the Jews. Address delivered at Carnegie Hall, 
Dec. 6, I9II. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
497-498. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 

>,-ivol. 2; pp. 318-322. N..Y., Harpers,.1925. 

For government by the people. 

Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 9, 1911, v. 55:20. 

The Initiative, Referendum and Recall (a letter to Professor 
R. H. Dabney, published in the Richmond Times- 
Dispatch Dec. 26, 1911). 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 323-324. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


1912. The minister and the community. New York [etc.] Asso- 
ciation Press, 1912. 
(Reprinted from 1909.) 
The tariff. Address at the National Democratic Club, New 
York, Jan. 3, 1912. 
Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48:4748- 
4752. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 325-343. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 


502 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Address delivered at the Jackson Day dinner, Washington, 
Jan. 8, 1912. 
Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48:4745- 


4747- 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 344-353. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

First annual message to the legislature of New Jersey, Jan. 
9, 1912. ‘Trenton, 1912, IO p. 

Also in:—Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, | 
pp. 9-16. 

Business and politics; an address delivered at the National 
League of Commission Merchants at the Astor Hotel, 
New York, on Jan. 11, 1912. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48: 3917- 
3919. 

Message transmitting a draft of bill relative to abandonment 
of navigation of the Morris and Essex Canal. Jan. 15, 
1912. Trenton, 1912. 32 p. 

Belated policies; address at Detroit, Jan. 18, 1912. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48: 3919. 

Address delivered at a banquet of the real estate men of 
Boston, Jan. 27, 1912. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
495-497. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 354-366. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address delivered at Richmond, Va., Feb. 1, 1912, before 
the General Assembly of Virginia and the City Coun- 
cil of Richmond. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48: 3919- 
3922. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 367-388. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address before the Iroquois Club, Chicago, Ill., Lincoln’s 
birthday, Feb. 12, 1912, at the Hotel La Salle. (New 
YY OfK 19120. (Pie, 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 389-404. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Tariff and trusts. Address delivered at Nashville, Tenn., 

Feb. 24, 1912. Pamphlet. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 405-423. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 
Message to the legislature of New Jersey, Feb. 26, 1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 
261-262. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 503 


Message to the senate of New Jersey, Mar. 14, 1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 
569-570. 
Message to the senate of New Jersey, Mar. 25, 1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 
814-816. 
Message to the senate of New Jersey, Mar. 28, 1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 
940-941. 
Message to the senate of New Jersey, Apr. 2, 1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 


997-998. 
Sixteen veto messages to the senate of New Jersey, Apr. 2, 
1912. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, pp. 998- 
IOIO. 


Message to the senate of New Jersey, Apr. 11, 1912. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1912, p. 1031. 

“What Jefferson would do,” address delivered at the Jeffer- 
son Day banquet, Waldorf-Astoria, New York, Apr. 
13, 1912. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48: 4747- 
4748. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 424-429. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Woodrow Wilson on government in relation to business. . . 
New York city (1912). 16 p. 

(Address delivered at the annual banquet of the Eco- 
nomic Club of New York at the Hotel Astor, May 23, 
1912.) 

Also in:—Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 
48, app. 392-396. 

Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875- 
LOTS GLVOL AES, We DDs ld 30e4 STS WON Nay lisp DELS; 
1925. | 

Address of welcome to the members of the American Medi- 
cal Association, Atlantic City, June 4, 1912. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
493-494. 

Speech of Governor Wilson accepting the Democratic nomi- 
nation for President of the United States. Together 
with the speech of notification delivered by Hon. Ollie 
M. James at Seagirt, N. J., Aug. 7, 1912. . . . Wash- 
ington, 1912. 

(Subject: Recent politics.) 


504 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Also in:—62d Cong., 2d sess. Senate Doc. 903. 
Also in:—Public papers; College and State (1875-1913), 
vol. 2, pp. 452-474. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. 

Address to New Jersey farmers at Washington Grove, 

Gloucester, New Jersey, Aug. 16, 1912. 
Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
587-588. 

Address to first voters. n.d. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
907. Date of issue, Aug. 26, 1912. 

Call for club organization. n.d. 

Congressional Record, 62d Cong., 2d sess., v. 48, app. 
907-909. Date of issue, Aug. 26, 1912. 

Governor Wilson’s Labor Day speech, Buffalo, New York. 
Septizy 1912. NY pp. pe 

Letter to ex-Mayor Phelan, of San Francisco, in support of 

the exclusion of Chinese and Japanese. 
Independent, Oct. 10, 1912, v. 73: 863. (Extract.) 

The Democratic party’s appeal. 

Independent, Oct. 24, 1913, v. 73: 937-943. 

Cut out privilege. 

Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 26, 1912, v. 185: 4. 

How Governor Wilson feels. 

Harper’s Weekly, Oct. 26, 1912, v. 55: 7-8. 

Woodrow Wilson’s message to the American people. 

Literary Digest, Oct. 26, 1912, v. 45: 729. 

Speech at Hillside Grammar School, Montclair, N. J., Oct. 
29, 1912. Stenographic report in Mrs. Wilson’s pos- 
session. 

The new meaning of government. 

Woman’s Home Companion, Nov. 1912, v. 39: 3-4. 


1913. The new freedom: a call for the emancipation of the gener- 
ous energies of a people. New York and Garden City, 
Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913. 

[Eighteen impressions. "There was a French edition in 
1916, a Swedish edition in 1917, and a German edition 
in 1919. | 

Compiled by W. B. Hale from the stenographic reports 
of the author’s campaign speeches. 

The new freedom appeared first in The World’s Work, 
Jan.-July, 1913, v. 25: 253-264, 421-430, 540-551, 628- 
640; v. 26: 59-68, 182-189, 302-309. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 505 


The Spirit of learning. (The Phi Beta Kappa oration at 
Saunders Theatre, Cambridge, July 1, 1909.) Re- 
printed, pp. 3-27, in: Essays for College Men, col- 
lected by Norman Foerster. New York, Henry Holt 
& Co., I913. 

Rules governing the granting and issuing of passports in the 
United States. [Washington, 1913. ] 

(Signed: Woodrow Wilson.) 

Der staat; elemente historischer und praktischer politik, von 
dr. Woodrow Wilson... autorisierte tbersetzung 
von Giinther Thomas, mit dem bilde und einem geleit- 
wort des verfassers, einem vorwort des tbersetzers, 
inhaltsverzeichnis und sachregister. Berlin-Leipzig, H. 
Hillger, 1913. 

Address in Chicago, Jan. 11, 1913. 

New York Times, Jan. 12, 1913, section 2, p. I. 
Speech in Trenton before New Jersey doctors, Jan. 13, 1913. 
New York Times, Jan. 14, 1913. | 

Second annual message to the legislature of New Jersey, 
Jaireiaelorss » | rentonw1913-.) 12: p. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1913, pp. 7-17. 
Also in:—New York Times, Jan. 15, 1913, p. 24. 
Address before social welfare advocates, Hoboken, Jan. 26, 

1913. 
New York Times, Jan. 27, 1913. 

Farewell speech to the New Jersey senators, Trenton, Jan. 
28, 1913. 

New York Times, Jan. 29, 1913, p. 7. 

“Freemen need no guardians.” 

Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1913, n. s., v. 93, 0. Ss. V. 99: 
209-218. 

Letter to A. Mitchell Palmer relative to the presidential 
term. Dated Feb. 5, 1913, in the Congressional Rec- 
ord, and Feb. 13, 1913, in the New York Times. 

Congressional Record, 64th Cong., Ist sess., v. 53: 12620. 

Also in:—New York Times, Jan. 11, 1916, p. I. 

Extracted in:—Independent, Jan. 24, 1916, v. 85: 109- 
II0O. 

View of America’s future. 

Journal of Education, Feb. 6, 1913, v. 77: 146-147. 

Message to the president of the senate of New Jersey, trans- 
mitting the report of the employers’ liability commis- 
sion, Feb. 11, 1913. 

Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1913, p. 159. 

Message to the legislature of New Jersey, transmitting the 


506 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


report of the commission of seven on the consolidation 
of state agencies, Feb. 18, 1913. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1913, pp. 273- 
274. 
Statement to the New Jersey legislature on anti-trust laws, 
Trenton, Feb. 20, 1913. 
New York Times, Feb. 21, 1913, p. 12. 
Message to the senate of New Jersey, announcing resignation. 
Undated. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1913, Feb. 25, 
p. 413. 
Message to the legislature of New Jersey. Undated. 
Journal of the senate of New Jersey for 1913, Feb. 25, 
PP. 413-414. 
Jefferson—Wilson; extracts from “A history of the American 
people” by Woodrow Wilson. 
North American Review, Mar. 1913, v. 197: 289-294. 
Speech at the inauguration of James F. Fielder, Trenton, 
Mar. 1, 1913. 
New York Times, Mar. 2, 1913, section 2, p. 2. 
Speech at the smoker of the Princeton ATising? Washington, 
Mar. 3, 1913. 
New York Times, Mar. 4, 1913, p. 2. 


INDEX 


A 


Aberdeen Coalition, i, 73 
“Abraham Lincoln; A Man of 
the People,” zi, 83-101 
“Abraham Lincoln, the Tribute 
of a Century,” i, 83 
Accumulated capital, power of, 
it, 55, 57-58 
Adams, John, i, 330, 342, 422 
Adams, John Quincy, i, 330, 343 
Agincourt, i, 433 
Aguinaldo, i, 428 
Aldermen, boards of, iz, 216 
Aldrich, Senator, ii, 123, 127, 
128, 215, 333, 439, 440 
Alliance, Evangelical, i, 361 
Alsace, i, 7.—See also Lorraine 
Amendment, Thirteenth, i, 
376, 384, 390; Fourteenth, 
384, 385, 386, 390; Fifteenth, 
386, 390, 391 
“American and European Sys- 
tems, Comparison,” i, 163n 
American Bankers’ Association, 
il, 54 
American 
245 
American 
159-178 
American Historical Review, i, 
313n. 
American people, 
308, 410 
Angevin kings, 7, 139 
Annapolis convention, it, 407 
Anne, Queen, i, 109 
“Antecedent Liberal Education, 
Should an, Be Required of 
Students in Law, Medicine, 
and Theology?” i, 223-231 


Bar Association, ii, 


Commonwealth, i, 


ii, 283-284, 


Anti-Corn-Law League, i, 46, 


51 

Apostles’ Creed, i, 361 

Applied science, schools of, ii, 
157 

Appropriations, i, 32 

Architecture, Renaissance, ii, 92 

Arthur, Chester A., i, 203, 212 

Articles of Confederation, i, 
193, 318, 320; it, 42 

Assembly, Constituent, i, 138, 
139 

Association, law of, i, 233 

Athletics, ii, 154, 174 

Atlantic Monthly, i, 187, 286, 
310, 368, 396, 416; i, 1, 2, 23 

“Atticus,” i, 1, 10, 63 

Australia, i, 177, 388; i, 213 

Australian method of voting in, 
PE oR te 

Austria, i, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 76 

Authority, concentration of, ii, 
205 


B 


“Baby act,” i, 129, 130 
Baccalaureate address, Wood- 
row Wilson’s, ii, 234-244 
“Back to the reign of law,” 30 

Bagehot, Walter, i, 30, 133 

Ballot, the, iz, 189 

Baltimore Democratic conven- 
tion, ii, 452 

Bancroft, General, iz, 357 

“Banker and the Nation, The,” 
il, 54-63 

“Bankers and Statesmanship,” ii, 
225-233 

Banking reform, ii, 307 

Bank, National, i, 323; it, 408 


597 


508 


Banks, i, 323; i, 58-61, 408, 
465 

Bayard, Thomas F., i, 201, 299, 
306 

Beaconsfield, Lord, i, 17, 80, 88 

Belcher, Governor, i, 261 

Benton, Senator, ii, 5 

“Bible and Progress, The,” ii, 
291-302 

Bible, Mr. Wilson’s address on, 
ii, 291-302 

Bible, tercentenary celebration 
of the translation into the 
English language, ii, 291 

Bills of Rights, i, 430; i, 341 

Bipartisan political machine, ii, 
287, 415 

Birthright, American, ii, 232 

“Bismarck, Prince,” i, I-10, 15 

Bissell, Wilson S., 7, 201, 209, 
oh yo Wy | 

Black Death, i, 133 

Blackstone, i, 133, 245, 256 

Blaine, James G:, 7, 202; +22, 


407 
Blanket ballot, ii, 213, 214 
Blenheim, 7, 79 
Bliss, Cornelius N., 
Bluntschli, i, 145 
Boarding-schools, ii, 
175 
Bosses, political, ii, 47, 212, 213 
Boudinot, i, 422 
Bouting, M., i, 165 
Bright, John, i, 43-59, 67, 68, 
74, 75, 80, 83, 87 
Broom, Mr., i, 239 
Brougham, Lord, i, 7 
Browning, ii, 94 
Brownson, Dr., i, 61 
Bryan, George, ii, 225, 226, 


231 
Bryan, William J., 
ui, 74, 75, 345 
Bryce, James, i, 158-178, 241 
Buchanan, James, i, 202; ii, 2, 
4, 8, II-13 
Bundesrath, 7, 191 
Bureaucracy, i, 157 


Burgess, John W., i, 187 


i, 333 


170, 172, 


1, 331, 332; 


INDEX 


Burke, Edmund, i, 6, 9, 51, 108, 
109n., 181, 273, 274, 420, 421, 
423, 429, 4343 ii, 209 

Burr, Aaron, i, 267 

Burr, Rev. Aaron, i, 260, 261, 
262, 266 

Business and politics, ii, 327, 415 

Business, big, not dangerous, ii, 
464-465 

“Business, Government in Re- 
lation to,” ii, 430-451 

Business, government regulation 
Of, 4, 21, 22 

Business, modern, ii, 54 


C 


Cabinet, i, 36-39, 95-129 
Cabinet government in the 
United States, i, 19-42, 163 
Cabinet, Mr. Cleveland’s, i, 
198-222 

Calhoun, John C., i, 56, 330, 
331, 3425 tt, 4,5 

Canada, i, 164, 319, 398, 405 

Canning, George, i, 51, 81 

Cannon, Joseph, ii, 127, 128 

Capital and labor, i, 232, 398; ii, 
55.—See also Employer and 
employee 

Capital, power of accumulated, 
it, 55, 57-58, 135 

Captains of industry, i, 340, 
18 

Carlisle, John G., i, 200, 205, 
she 22 213k. 296, 300, 


304. 
Cartwright, Mr., i, 61 
Cass, Lewis, i, 202 
Catholics, Liberal, i, 61 
Caucuses, i, 106-118 
Caution, ii, 89 
Century Encyclopaedia of 
Names, ii, 64 
Chalmers, Dr., i, 364; ii, 450 
Charter, Great, i, 139 
Charter, New York City, ii, 223 
Chase, Salmon P., ii, 7 
Chatham, Earl, i, 6, 11-18, 51, 
181, 273, 420.—See also Pitt, 
William 


INDEX 


Child labor, Federal regulation 
of, ii, 37 

Choate, Joseph H., ii, 226 

Chopin, iz, 84, 85 

Ghristetsi 4.1 79,41170;4102, 107, 
240-243, 298 

Christianity, ii, 178-179, 186, 187 

Church of England, i, 76 

Church of Ireland, i, 71, 73, 76 

Church, opportunity of, ii, 183 

“Church, Young People and 
the,” i, 474-486 

Churches, Protestant, ii, 202 

Cities, badly governed, ii, 218 

“Citizenship, University Train- 
ing and,” i, 246-258 

City Club (Boston), Mr. Wil- 
son’s address before, ii, 354 

City Club (Philadelphia), 7, 
188 

Civil service, i, 130, 141, 144- 
14550293,0307 0) 

Civil War, i, 314, 327, 328, 331, 
388, 389, 390, 401, 404; ii, I, 
33, 35, 67, 248, 360.—See also 
Confederacy; Slavery; South 

Clay, Henry, i, 80, 202, 325, 
330, 331, 342; 72, 4, 5,14, 15, 


Cleveland, Grover, cabinet, i, 
198-222; home training, 287; 
qualities, 288; sheriff of Buf- 
falo, 289; mayor of Buffalo, 
289; governor, 290; chosen 
President, 291; disapproval of 
private pension bills, 292-295; 
attitude to purchase and coin- 
age of silver, 293, 298, 30I- 
303; and civil service, 293, 
294; and Congress, 295; and 
the tariff, 296, 297, 298, 299, 
303; renominated, 297; defeat, 
297; President second time, 
298; and income tax, 303-304; 
and Hawaii, 305; Venezuelan 
dispute, 306; Cuban question, 
307; defeat, 309; dislike by 
Congress, 333 

Clubs, college, 7, 499-521 

Cobden, Richard, i, 46, 74 


599 


Cold storage, ii, 280-281 

College, American, ii, 102-119, 
149-155, 160-177 

Columbian Exposition.—S ee 
World’s Fair 

Combinations, great, ii, 135, 139, 
229, 356, 376, 398.—See also 
Corporations; Trusts 

Commentaries, Blackstone’s, i, 
2.45 

Commerce, i, 312; ii, 43, 407 

Commission, government) by, ii, 
220-221 

Commissions, public service, ii, 
26 

“Committee or Cabinet Govern- 
ment?” 7, 95-129 

Committees, Congressional, i, 
21-23, 27, 29, 38, 39, 40, 99, 
1012103,0113; (TAO R12 tesa: 


334, 347, 411 
ommoner, Great. See Chat- 
ham 


Commons, House of, i, 66, 70, 
84, 85, 86, 87, 95, 98, 167, 
173, 190, 423, 424, 430, 431. 
—See also Parliament 

Commonwealths of 1774, i, 194 

“Community, The Lawyer and 
the,” ii, 245-268 

“Comparison of the American 
and European Systems,” i, 
163n. 

Compensation, workmen’s, 71,273 

Competition, free, ii, 228, 348, 
400 

Confederacies, vast, 465, 467 

Confederacy, Southern, i, 56-57, 


384.—See also Civil War; 
Slavery 
Confederation, Articles of, i, 


193, 318, 320; ii, 42 
Confederation, Congress of the, 
t, 326 
Confederation, German, i, 3 
Confidences, Roosevelt and, ii, 
217 
Congress, United States, i, 19, 
21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 32, 36, 
39, 40, 41, 89, 99, 105, 112, 


119, 121, 
162, 164, 
218, 220, 
295, 296, 
339, 332, 
344, 356, 


123, 124, 

200, 206, 

222, 266, 

301, 305, 

333, 334; 

358, 373; 

376, 380, 381, 382, 

384, 385, 386, 391, 392, 

394, 418; ii, 9,10, 32, 
33, 34, 35, 30, 37, 40, 41, 43, 
44, 46, 47, 48, 122, 123, 124, 
130, 134, 139, 142, 143, 145, 
198, 215, 248, 250, 327, 407, 
417, 434, 435, 441, 443, 458. 
—See also House of Repre- 
sentatives; Senate 

Congressional Committees, 7, 21- 
23;'27, 29, 38, 39," 40): 99, 
TOIA1OZ,. UT 2 UEI1O; CiI2sh gst 
334, 347, 411 

Congressional Record, i, 97; ii, 
54, 291, 303, 318, 325, 344, 
354, 424, 430 

Conservation, ii, 307, 350-351, 
355-356, 363, 370, 371, 471, 
472-473 

Conservative party, i, 54, 68 

Constituent Assembly, 7, 138, 
139 

Constitution, American, 7, 25, 
104, 112, 113, 141, 
168, 182, 191, 
274, 286, 287, 
310, 312, 321, 
341, 346, 371, 376, 
384, 388, 389, 393, 394, 468; 
48,935 10) 32,130,437) 40004 Ty 
43, 48, 49, 51, 406, 407, 434, 
435, 436 

Constitution, British, z, 24, 393 

Constitution, Canadian, i, 164 

“Constitution, Development of 
the, by Usage,” z, 175 

Constitution, French, i, 184 

Constitution of 1789, i, 193 

“Constitution, The Courts and 
the,” i, 163 

Constitutional convention of 
1787, 2):24,°25, 1814268, 260, 
274; of 1857, i, 43 


114, 
129, 
214, 
293, 
329, 
341, 
ier 


INDEX 


“Constitutional” government, i, 
399 

Contemporary Review, i, 184 

Continental Congress, first, 7, 
193, 194, 264, 318, 325, 344, 
418 

Contract, law of, i, 233 

Control, political, in hands of 
the people, iz, 305 

Convention, Constitutional, of 
1787, i, 24, 25, 181, 268, 269, 
274 

Conventions, nominating, i, 331, 
332 

Corn Daws,) 47507 

Cornwallis, Lord, i, 417, 420 

Corporations, i, 28, 133; ii, 20, 
24,20; 29)'20, 1143;6 181-102; 
198, 216, 254-267, 271, 273- 
275, 306, 330, 412-413, 414. 
—See also Combinations, 
great; Meat trust; Trusts 

Corruption in office, i, 32 

Cotton, John, 7, 363 

Council, President’s Great, i, 
201 

“Courts and the Constitution, 
esi viss103 

Courts, the, z, 163; i, 49-51 

Crimean War, i, 4 

Crisp, Charles F., i, 205 

Cromwell, Oliver, i, 6, 181 

Cuba, i, 307, 427, 428 

Currency, i, 312 


D 


Dale, Mr., 7, 122 

Darwin, Charles, ii, 84, 85, 434 

David, King, ii, 295 

Davies, Samuel, 7, 261, 262, 266 

Debate an essential function of 
a popular representative body, 
i, 28-30 

Declaration of Independence, i, 
264, 418 

Delineator, 147 

Demagogue, the, zi, 286 

“Democracy and Efficiency,” 7, 
396-415 


INDEX 


Democracy in America, i, 159 

“Democracy, Living Principles 
of,” ii, 193-201 

“Democracy’s Opportunity,” ii, 
303-309 

Democratic party, ii, 3, 13, 14, 
15, 25, 28; #, 193, 194, 195, 
284, 285, 303-309, 344, 351, 
394, 399, 400, 401, 404, 405, 
410, 418, 419, 420 

Demosthenes, i, 17 

Depew, Chauncey M., i, 346 

Deputies, Chamber of, i, 191 

Derby, Earl, i, 67, 85 

“Development of the Constitu- 
tion by Usage, The,” 7, 175 

Dewey, John, i, 231 

Dickinson, Rey. Jonathan, i, 
260, 261, 262 

Diet, Federal, i, 4, 8 

Dingley tariff bill, 2, 120 

Dinwiddie, Governor, i, 321 

Dishonesty, ii, 227 

Disraeli, Benjamin, i, 17, 85, 87 

Distrust, universal, of represen- 
tative methods, ii, 218 

Dodd, William E., i, 167n. 

Dormitories, life in college, i, 
169-170 

Douglas, Stephen A., i, 381; ii, 
5, 6-10, 16, 20, 84, 391. See 
also “Little Giant.” 

Dred Scott decision, ii, 10, 11, 13 


E 


“Hast; 4,313, 316, 322,324, 
325, 327, 328, 329 

Ecclesiastical Titles bill, i, 73 

Economic Club (New York), ii, 
430 

Economic interests, diversity of, 
ii, 210 

Eddy, Mr., i, 445 

“Education, Legal, of Under- 
graduates,” i, 232-245 

Education, liberal, i, 223-231 

Edwards, Jonathan, 7, 261, 262 

Efficiency, i, 396-415, i, 204- 
205, 354-356 


ise 


“Efficiency, Democracy and,” i, 
396-415 

Elections, popular, 7, 47 

Elective, make every office, ii, 
205 

Electoral system, reform of, ii, 
224 

Elizabeth, Queen, i, 133 

Ellsworth, Oliver, i, 266, 269 

Embargo, the, i, 315 


Employee, employer and, ii, 
272-273.—See also Capital; 
Labor 


Employer and employee, ii, 272- 
273.—See also Capital; Labor 

Engineering Education, Society 
for the Promotion of, i, 445 

Engineering, schoolseof, and me- 
chanic arts, ii, 157 

England, i, 16, 17, 21, 37, 43-59; 
61, 63-88, 91, 136, 139, 161, 
Ig 1y172))173; 190,192,'237, 
246, 259, 318, 319, 320, 393, 
400, 405, 407, 412, 424, 430, 
431, 432, 436; ii, 374.—See 
also Commons, House of; 
Lords, House of; Parliament 

“English Men of Letters,’ i, 


109n. 

Evangelical Alliance, i, 361 

Evarts, William M., i, 202 

Executive and legislative, rela- 
tions of, i, 127-129, 333, 334, 
351, 358 

Expansion, commercial, ii, 375 

Expediency, doctrine of, ii, 184 


F 


Fairchild, Charles S., i, 205 

Farewell Address, Washing- 
ton’s, i, 367 

“Federal Government, ‘The 
States and the,” ii, 32-53 

Federalist, i, 267 

Few, legislation for the, ii, 462- 
463 

Fifteenth century, 
225 

Fillmore, Millard, iz, 14 


notable, i, 


512 


Finley, Samuel, i, 261, 262, 266 

Fish, Hamilton, i, 7 

Foote, Senator, ii, 7 

Ford, Professor Henry J., ii, 
212 

Forum, i, 246, 259 

Fox, Charles James, i, 66, 423, 
430 

France, 4.772 \ Su LO Ola 70, 
138,)/139,2 155.5 250; 107" 064, 
190, 192, 246, 319, 320, 405, 
429, 432; i, 210, 374-375 

Franklin, Benjamin, i, 335, 422 

Fraternity chapters, ii, 171-172 

Frederick the Great, i, 15, 138 

Frederic William III, i, 138 

Free coinage of silver, ii, 60 

Freedman, i, 375 

Freedman’s Bureau, i, 379, 384, 
385 

Freedom, human, ii, 382 

“Freedom, Issues of,’ ii, 283- 


290 

“Free-Soil” convention, ii, 15 

Free-Soil party, ii, 15, 16 

Free Trade, English, 7, 46-50, 
53, 73, 77, 84, 85; in Amer- 
ica.—See Tariff. 

Free Trade Hall, i, 49 

French and Indian War, i, 259, 
BO2heT S022 1 no 

Freneau, Philip, z, 267 

Fugitive Slave law, ii, 4 


G 


Gage, Lyman J., i, 333 

Gary, James A., i, 333 

Garland, A. H., i, 208 

Garland, Commissioner, i, 92, 94 

George, King, i, 422 

German government, ii, 123, 440 

Germany, i, 3, 4, 7-10, 60, 76, 
155, 156, 157, 191, 192, 246, 
306, 307, 398; ii, 124, 374-375 

Gibbon, John, i, 64 

Gilman, President, i, 230 

Gladstone, William E., i, 51, 
Soh 63-88, 90, 91, 167; ii, 84, 
5 


INDEX 


“Gladstone, Mr.: A Character 
Sketch,” i, 63-88 

Glasgow, best governed city in 
world, ii, 219 

Glasgow Herald, ii, 220 

“Gleanings of Past Years,” i, 


5 
Gneist, Prof. Rudolph, 7, 408 
Godolphin, i, 109 
Gold, discovery of, ii, 3, 11 
Golden Age, The, i, 474 
Goodnow, Professor, i, 168 
Gordon, Senator, ii, 225, 226 
Gortschakoff, i, 4, 7, 8 
Government, cabinet, i, 19-42, 


163 
“Government, Committee or 
Cabinet?” i, 95-129 
Government, constitutional, i, 
143 
~ “Government in Relation to 


Business,” ii, 430-451 

Graduate schools, ii, 154, 155, 
156 

Graft,' is, 227 

Grahame, Kenneth, i, 474 

Grain, export of, ii, 357 

Grant, Ulysses S., i, 201, 203, 
20502108370 

Great Charter, i, 139 

Greece, i, 180 

Greeley, Horace, ii, 387 

Green, J. R., 7, 95 

Gresham, Walter Q., i, 200, 
202-204, 214, 216 

Guadalupe-Hidalgo, treaty of, 
li, 4 

Guiana, _ British.—See 
zuelan dispute 


Vene- 


H 


Hadley, Arthur T., i, 361 

Hale, Sir Matthew, i, 239 

Hamilton, Alexander, i, 33, 194, 
323, 324, 330, 427; u, 27, 131, 
132, 142, 346 

Hampden, John, i, 6, 11, 181, 
272, 274 430 

Hancock, Thomas, i, 422 


INDEX 


Hapsburg, House of, i, 3 

Harcourt, Sir William, i, 51, 80 

Harper's Weekly, ti, 193 

Harrison, Benjamin, i, 211, 298 

Harrison, William Henry, ii, 14 

Hartford Convention, i, 315 

Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, 
ii, 102 

Hawaii, annexation of, 7, 305 

Hegel, i, 132 

Fenty oP atrick; 1;.00,5273;-337, 
422 

Henry II, i, 140 

Henry VIII, i, 433 

Herbert, Hilary A., i, 200, 205, 
206-207, 212, 216, 300 

“Hide and Seek Politics,” ii, 
204-224 

High schools, ii, 154-155 

History, English and American 
political, i, 140 

History of England, Fox’s, i, 66 

Hoar, Senator, i, 30 

Holst, Dr. von, i, 165 

“Honest Abe,” ii, 87 

Honesty, individual, ii, 228, 229 

Hooker, Thomas, i, 362 

House of Commons, i, 66, 70, 
84, 85, 86, 87, 423, 424, 430, 
431 

House of Representatives, U. S., 
i, 21, 27, 32, 95-103, 121, 124, 
206, 296, 297, 299, 300, 302, 
303, 325, 330, 332, 333, 334, 
341, 346, 349, 350, 355, 370, 
379; 380311, 16, 121,°126)/130, 
342.—See also Congress, 
United States 

Houston, Professor, i, 265 

Howe, Sir William, i, 417 

Hungary, i, 76 

Huntington, Dr., i, 361 


I 


“Tdeal University, The,” i, 147- 
159 

Ignorance, New, i, 225 

“Tllustrations and Reflections,” 


i, 168 


513 


Immigration, i, 354 

Inaugural address, Mr. Wil- 
son’s, as governor of New 
Jersey, ii, 270-282 

Independence, Declaration of, i, 
264, 418 

Independent, The, i, 487 

India, i, 14 

“Individual, The Ministry and 
the,” ii, 178-187 

Industries, infant, iz, 130, 133, 
463-464 

Industry, captains of, 340, 418 

“Infant industries,” ii, 130, 
133 

Initiative, referendum, and re- 
call, ii, 189, 287-289, 323-324 

“Tnitiative, Referendum, and 
Recall, On the,” ii, 323-324 

“Institutions, Social,” i, 169 

“Insurgents,” ii, 394, 395 

Interests, the, ii, 285, 376 

International Congress of Edu- 
cation, i, 223 

International Review, i, 19 

Ireland, famine in, ii, 16 

Irish Church, i, 71, 73 

Iroquois Club (Chicago), i, 
389 

“Issues of Freedom,” ii, 283-290 

Italy, i, 8 

rT 


Jackson, Andrew, i, 160, 199, 
232,214 215; 216;/21709280, 
330, 342, 343, 3743 i, 15, 34, 


344-353 

Jackson Day dinner, Mr. Wil- 
son’s address at, ii, 344-353 

Jefferson Day banquet, Mr. 
Wilson’s address at, ii, 424- 
429 

Jefferson, Joseph, i, 366 

Jefferson Society, i, 43 

Jefferson, Thomas, i, 323, 330, 
342, 405, 424, 427; i, 30, 424- 
429 

Jesuits, i, 60, 61 

Jesus, Society of, i, 61 

Jews, i, 71; ii 318-322 


514 


Jobbery, legislative, i, 28 

John, King, i, 140; i, 295 

Johnson, Andrew, i, 218, 373- 
395 

Joline, Mr., ii, 227 

Journal of the Senate of New 
Jersey, ii, 270 

Judges, superiority of appointed 
to elected, ii, 222 

Justice for tariff and trusts, 
rule of, ii, 455-456 


K 


Kansas, civil war in, i, 12 

Kansas, Nebraska bill, iz, 10, 16 

“Kearneyism in California,” i, 
168 

Kings, Angevin, i, 139 

Knife and Fork Club, zz, 283 

Know-Nothing party, i, 16, 


17 
Knox, John, i, 274 


L 


Labor, capital and, i, 232, 398; 
it, 55.—See also Employee and 
employer; Wages; Work- 
men’s compensation 

Labor, Federal regulation of, 
Le 

LaFollette, Robert, ii, 407 

Lamar, UL.’ Q.:C.,\¢ 207; 210, 
299 

Lamont, Daniel, i, 200, 209, 217 

Law, constitutional, z, 188, 196 

Law, government by, ii, 25, 
28 

Law, judge-made, i, 174 

“Law or Personal Power,” ii, 
24-31 

Law schools, ii, 157 

Law, the, i, 232-245; ii, 22, 27, 
181, 245-268 

“Lawyer and the Community, 
The,” ii, 245-268 

“Lawyer in Politics, The,” i, 
310-317 

Lawyers, ii, 247-268, 310-317 


INDEX 


“Leaderless Government,” i, 
336-359 

Learning, ii, 102-119, 162 

Learning, New, i, 225 

“Learning, The Spirit of,” i, 
102-119 

Lee, Harry, i, 267, 429; ii, 66 

Lee, Robert E., ii, 64-82 

Legislation, dishonest, i, 28 

Liability, employ ers’, ii, 273 

Liberal party, i, 56, 73 

Liberalism, English, i, 44-46, 73 

Liberals, Prussian, 13 

“Liberty party,” ii, 15 

Liberty, political, i, 246 

Life, ii, 437 

Life of Macaulay, Trevelyan’s, 


i, 64 

“Lighthorse Harry.”—See Lee, 
Harry 

Lincoln, Abraham, i, 217, 286, 
309, 331, 371, 372,374) 375) 
382, 389; ii, 34, 83-101, 202, 


389-404.—See also ‘Honest 
Abe” 
“Lincoln’s Birthday,” ii, 389- 
404 


“Little Giant,” ii, 5—See also 
Douglas, Stephen A. 

“Living Principles of Democ- 
racy,” ii, 193-201 

Livingston, Robert R. i, 
422 

Lobby, ii, 137, 415 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, i, 19, 346 

“Log-rolling,” ii, 134 

Lords, House of, i, 
also Parliament 

Lorraine, i, 7.—See also Alsace 

Louisiana Purchase, i, 323, 326; 
il, 3 

Lowe, Robert, i, 51, 80 

Lowell, James Russell, i, 180 

Lytton, Lord, i, 49 


405; 


190.—S ee 


M 


Macaulay, Lord, i, 79 
Machine, bipartisan political, ii, 
287 


INDEX 


Missouri Compromise, it, 3, 4, 


Machine indispensable to poli- 
tics, ii, 207, 209 

Machinery, nominating, ii, 210, 
211 

Madison, James, i, 194, 267, 
268, 271, 274, 330, 335, 337; 
342, 343, 460 

Magna Charta, i, 273, 274, 430; 
it, 295 

Maine, Sir H., i, 165, 167 

“Make Haste Slowly,” iz, 179- 
186 

Man, Rights of, i, 437 

“Manchester School,” i, 46 

Manitoba, wheat from, i, 92 

Manning, Daniel, i, 205, 206, 
293 

Markets, foreign, need of, ii, 


472 

Marlborough, Duke of, i, 79, 
109 

Marriage, laws of, i, 398 

Marshall, Chief-Justice, li, 435 

Martin, Luther, i, 266 

Mason, George, i, 3375 u, 386 

Maynooth College i, 71 

McCormick ‘Theological Sem- 
inary, ii, 178 

McCosh, James, i, 361 

McKinley tariff bill, ii, 120 

McKinley, William, 7, 298, 308, 
332, 333, 345, 346; i, 407 

Meat Trust, ii, 199 

Medical schools, ii, 157 

Meeker, Professor, ii, 229 

Men, big business, seeing the 
light, i, 467-468 

Mendelssohn, 77, 84, 85 

Merchant marine, ii, 374-375; 
471-472 

Metternich, i, 11 

Mexican cession, ii, 15 

Mexico, i, 405 

Mill, John Stuart, i, 93, 165 

Millennium, political, i, 232 

Mills, Roger Q., i, 205, 297 

Minister, duties of, ii, 180, 185, 
186 

“Ministry and the Individual, 
The,” iz, 178-187 


515 


5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 35 
Money question, i, 406 
Money trust, ii, 411, 417 
Monod, M., i, 184 
Monopoly; ii, 228, 400-407 
Monroe Doctrine, i, 306 
Monroe, James, i, 330, 343 
Montesquieu, i, 25, 149, 401, 431 
Moody, Dwight L., ii, 182-183 
Morality, zi, 227-228 
Morals, commercial, ii, 
paternal, ii, 51 
Morley, John, i, 64, 109n. 
Morris, Gouverneur, i, 181, 422 
Morrison, Senator, i, 205, 296 
Morton, J. Sterling, i, 200, 208, 


136; 


217 
“My Ideal of the True Univer- 
sity,” i, 147n. 


N 


Napoleon, first, 2, 1, As TAS lao 

Napoleon, third, i, 

Nassau ered Aes i, 
TTT 

Nation, an awakened, ii, 453 

National Assembly, French, i, 
95, 98, 191 

National banks, ii, 408 

National Democratic Club, ii, 


24, 325 

National government, extension 
of, ii, 306 

“National Government, The,”’ 
i, 161 


N Nes at war within itself, ii, 


«Nation, The Banker and the,” 
ii, 54-63 

“Nation, The Making of the,” 
i, 310-335 

Nast, Thomas, ii, 191 

New England Society, i, 360 

New Jersey Bankers’ Associa- 
tion, ti, 225 

New Jersey, judges in, it, 222 

Newton, Isaac, ii, 85, 434 

New York, charter of, ii, 223 


516 


Niebuhr, Barthold G., i, 146 

Nihilism, i, 76 

Nominating conventions, i, 331, 
332, 344 

Nomination, elections must be 
managed by the alchemy of, 
ii, 216 

North American Review, it, 32, 
120, 204 

“Northwest,” Old, i, 327 

Northwest Territory, i, 326; i, 


3/35)" 
Nullification, a, 33, 34 


O 


Office, good men in, ii, 208 

Old North, i, 265, 466 

Old “Northwest,” i, 327 

Oliver, Commissioner, i, 92 

Olmutz, i, 3 

Olney, Richard, i, 200, 208, 217, 
300; ii, 354 

Omaha Bee, ii, 74 

Opinion, public, i, 141, 142-143, 
FADE 50,105, 42275" 12,09207; 
209, 265, 272 

“Opportunity, Democracy’s” ii, 
303-309 

Ordinance of 1787, i, 320, 326; 
1,3 

Organization, efficiency depend- 
ent upon, ii, 205 

Orient, ii, 17 

Otis, James, i, 273 

Over-capitalization, ii, 30 

Overland Monthly, i, 95 

Ownership, government, ii, 21 


P 


Page, Walter H., i, 246, 286 

Palmerston, Lord, 7, 73, 84 

Panama Canal, ii, 375, 409, 472 

Papal See, i, 62 

Parliament, British, i, 17, 48, 
65, 72, 73, 78, 84, 140, 167, 
274, 422, 423, 424 

Parties, American, i, 109, 129; 
ii, 24, 210, 224 


INDEX 


Party organization, officials con- 
trolled by, ii, 209-217 

“Party, right or wrong,” i, 55 

“Party System, The,” i, 165 

Paterson, William, i, 266, 269 

Patriotism, American, i, 19 

Patronage, ii, 198, 232, 341 

Paul, St., i, 239-241 

Payne-Aldrich ‘Tariff bill, i, 
120, 348, 440, 459 

Peel, Sir Robert, i, 70, 71, 73 

Penn, William, i, 47 

Pennsylvania State Sabbath 
School Association, i, 474 

Pension bills, private, i, 292 

People, American, ii, 283-284, 
308, 410 

People, responsibility of officials 
to, ii, 206, 207 

People, the, and government, ii, 
218 

“Personal Power, Law or,” ii, 
24-31 

Pettigrew, Louis, ii, 421 

Philadelphia convention, ii, 407 

Philippines, i, 402, 410, 412, 434, 
436, 438, 440; ti, 373, 469- 
470 

Phips, Governor, i, 167 

Pierce, Franklin, 7, 2 

Pinckney, Charles, i, 422 

Pilgrim Fathers, i, 362 

Pitt, William, 7, 133n, 430.— 
See also Chatham 

Pittsburgh Almuni of Prince- 
ton University, address to, ii, 
202-203 

Pittsburgh Dispatch, 203 

Plantagenets, the, i, 430 

Poe, Edgar Allan, i, 84, 85 

Political methods, reform of, ii, 
188-192, 204. 

“Political Reform,” i, 188-192 

Political Science and Compara- 
tive Constitutional Law, i, 


187n 
Political Science Quarterly, i, 
130, 159 | 
Politicians, “Manchester 


School” of, i, 46 


INDEX 


Politics, i, 170 

“Politics,” i, 1-23 

“Politics, Hide and Seek,” ii, 
204-224 

“Politics, The Lawyer in,” ii, 
310-317 

Politik, i, 145n. 

Polk, James K., i, 2 

Popular Government, i, 
177 

Populism, i, 310 

Porto Rico, i, 410, 439, 440 

“Preceptorial System, Prince- 
ton,” z, 487-498 

Presidency, Mr. Wilson’s 
speech accepting Democratic 
nomination for, ii, 452-474 

President’s Great Council, z, 
201 

Press, i, 117, 121 

Press, Philadelphia, 7, 83 

Prices and wages, ii, 461-462 

Prices, cause of high, i, 199 

Primaries, i, 110, 440 

Princeton Alumni Weekly, i, 
443, 462, 491, 499 

Princeton College, i, 259-285 

“Princeton for the WNation’s 
Service,” 7, 443-461 


165, 


“Princeton’s Ideals,’ i, 462- 
473 pe ieee a 
Princeton University, i, 443- 


461, 462-473, 474-521; ii, 24, 
147, 202-203, 244, 269 

Privilege, special, ii, 128 

Problem, race, i, 328 

Proceedings of the Internation- 
al Congress of Education of 
the World’s Columbian Ex- 
position, 7, 223 

Production, profits of, ii, 334; 
cost of, ii, 335-336, 339 

Professional schools, i, 444-445; 
ii, 103-104, 150, 156-158 

“Progress, The Bible and,” ii, 
291-302 

Progressive Republicans, iz, 419, 
420 

Promotion of Engineering Edu- 
cation, Society of, i, 445 


517 


Property, laws of, i, 398 

Prosperity, what it is, ii, 334 

Protection, i, 89-94; ii, 132-133, 
137, 140, 144, 198, 329, 341, 
396 

Prussia, | £,73414,; 55) 79010;1 138; 
141, 237 

Prussian Assembly, i, 3 

Prussian Liberals, i, 3 

Public opinion, i, 141, 142-143, 
149-150, 168, 227; ii, 207, 209, 
265, 272 

ria ag system, American, 

z, 02 

Public Utilities Commission 
(New Jersey), ii, 275, 276 

Puritans, i, 360-367 

Pym, John, i, 181 


Q 


Quads, residential, i, 518-521 

Quakers, i, 47 

Queen’s University bill, i, 71 

“Queen’s University in Ire- 
land,” i, 71 

Quincy, Josiah, i, 216 


R 


Race problem, i, 328 
Radicalism, ii, 350-351, 422 
Railways, confederacies of rail- 
ways and, ii, 465-467 
Railway traffic, regulation of, 7, 


354 
Randall, Samuel, 2, 296 
Randolph, John, z, 324, 325 
Recall, initiative, referendum, 
and, ii, 189, 287-289, 323-324 
Reckoning, day of, ii, 234 
Reconstruction, i, 57, 331, 354, 
368-395; iz, 17, 18 
“Reconstruction in the Southern 
States,” i, 368-395 
Redfield, Secretary, ii, 330, 335, 


339 
Reed, Thomas B., 7, 332, 346; 
ii, 225-226 


518 


Referendum, and recall, initia- 
tive, it, 189, 287-289, 323-324 

Reform Act of 1832, i, 46 

Reform, civil service, i, 
I4l, 144-145 

“Reform, political,” iz, 188-192 

Refugees, Freedmen, and 
Abandoned Lands, Bureau of, 
i, 379, 384, 385 

Regulation, executive, ii, 25 

Reichstag, i, 95, 191 

Religion, z, 480 

“Report” of the seventeenth 
annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Bar Association, i, 223- 
245 

Representative Government, i, 
165 

Representative methods, 
versal distrust of, i, 218 

Republican party, i, 16, 17, 25, 
123,126, 127, 193, 194, 195, 
284, 285, 327, 339, 340, 389, 
394, 395, 418, 419, 440, 458, 


130, 


uni- 


473 
Resignation from Princeton 
University, Mr. Wilson’s, ii, 
269 
Resources, natural, ii, 470- 
471 


Resumption Act of 1875, i, 29 
Retro-reformers, i, 365 
Re-United States, i, 169 
Review of Reviews (American), 


i, 198 

Revolution, American, i, 56, 
264, 268, 269, 273, 286, 337, 
417, 418, 421 

Revolution, French, i, 3, 138, 
139, 185, 423 


Revolutions, i, 1, 2, 3 

Richard, King, i, 140 

Richelieu, i, 6, 11 

Richmond, Mr. Wilson’s ad- 
dress at, ii, 367-388; Council 
of the City of, ii, 367 

Right and justice, great ques- 
tions of, ii, 454-455 

Rights, Bills of, i, 430; ii, 341, 
385-386 


INDEX 


“Rights of the Jews, The,” ii, 
318-322 

Rights, state and Federal, i, 
33-95 

Rise and Growth of American 
Politics, ti, 212 

Robert E. Lee, ii, 64 

“Robert E. Lee: An interpre- 
tation,” ii, 64-82 

Rodin, ii, 86 

Roman Catholic Church, Ger- 
man, 1, 10 

“Roman Catholic Church in 
America,” i, 60-62; ii, 72 

Rome, i, 180, 237 

Roosevelt, Theodore, ii, 
384 

Rosewater, Victor, tt, 74 

Rusk, J. M., i, 208 

Ruskin, John, 7, 81 

Russell, Lord John, i, 61, 73, 
84, 85 

Russia, 4, 35245) 55).5)) 10)7 70,0975 
143; it, 318-322 

Rutledge, John, i, 422 


217, 


S 


Sabbath School Association, 
Pennsylvania State, i, 474 

Salisbury, Lord, i, 306 

San Juan Hill, battle of, i, 416 

Schleswig-Holstein, 7, 3 

Science, political, i, 188, 189, 
195, 196 

Scott, Dred, i, 10, 13 

Scribner's Magazine, ii, 
177 

Sedan, i, 7 

Seigniorage bill, i, 302 

Senate, French, i, 191 

Senate, Roman, i, 350, 356 

Senate, U. S., i, 32, 38, 39, 41, 
97, 99, 161,201, #202, * 200, 
293, 294, 297, 302, 303, 305, 
331, 334, 341, 346, 349, 350, 
355, 359, 370, 380; iw, 122, 
123; ) 124,/ (130) "Sa5eaae 
—See also Congress, United 
States 


160- 


INDEX 


of United 
the 


Senators, choice 
States, i, 41 

“Service, Princeton 
Nation’s,” 7, 443-461 

Sesqui-centennial celebration, 
Princeton, i, 259-285 

Seward, William H., i, 331; ii, 
ffeat hs 

Sherman Act, ii, 26, 411, 462 

Sherman, General, i, 370; ii, 


for 


84 

Sherman, Roger, i, 335, 344, 
B50 uN er 

Ships, American, must carry 


American goods, it, 471-472. 
—See also Merchant marine 

Silver bill, Bland, i, 29 

Silver, free coinage of, iz, 60 

Silver question, i, 293, 298, 301- 
303, 308, 328.—See also Cur- 
rency 

Slavery, i, 57, 141, 310, 315, 
326, 330, 373, 375; i, 3, 4, 4, 
Lig h5 10933, 934.135 

Smith, Barnet, i, 63 

Smith, Professor, z, 266 

Smith, Goldwin, i, 95 

Smith, Hoke, i, 200, 201, 210- 
oh teh Mee he boo iy, 

“Social Institutions,” i, 169 

Socialism, ii, 56, 449 

Society, i, 232-233 

Society of Jesus, i, 61 

Somers, 7, 109 

South, the, z, 56-58, 89, 310, 
315, 326, 327, 328, 368-395; 
it, 4, 17, 18, 71, 76, 125, 408. 


—See also Confederacy; 
Slavery 
“Southern States, Reconstruc- 


tion in,” i, 368-395 

Sovereignty, state, ii, 36 

Spain, i, 320, 398, 405.—See 
also Cuba 

Spanish American War, ii, 330- 
331, 435, 360 

Speaker of House of Repre- 
sentatives, powers of, i, 333, 
347-349; i, 47 

Special privilege, ii, 128 


519 


“Spirit of Learning, The,” ii, 
102-119 

“Spirit, Princeton,” i, 505 

Spoils system, 7, 110 

“Squatter sovereignty,” ii, 7, 9, 
20 

Stamp Act, i, 262 

Standards, Democracy’s, ii, 195 

Standpatters, i, 394 

Stanley Committee, ii, 361, 400, 
410 

Stars and Stripes, ii, 332, 366 

“State Governments, The,” i, 
164 

State Rights, 7, 57 

“States and the Federal Gov- 
ernment, The,” ii, 32-53 

Statesman, Prussian, necessities 
of compared with English and 
American, i, 5-6 

“Statesmanship, Bankers and,” 
li, 225-233 

States, relation of to the Fed- 
eral government, ii, 24-53 

Statute of Laborers, i, 133 

Stein, Heinrich F. K., 7, 138, 152 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 7, 381, 383 

Stewart, A. T., 7, 205 

Stock, watered, iz, 30 

Story, Chief-Justice, i, 25 

Strikes, i, 334 

Stuarts, The, i, 393 

“Study of Administration, The,” 
i, 130-158 

Sugar Trust, ii, 125 

Sullivan, General, i, 417 

Sumner, Charles, i, 382, 383; 


ipa 

Sunday School Times Company, 
t, 474 

Sunderland, i, 109 

Supreme Court of the United 
States, i, 371, 376, 3813 ii, 10, 
13, 37, 52, 25! 

Sweden-Norway, i, 191 

Swift, Dean, i, 475; i, 187, 
330 

Switzerland, i, 167, 176, 396, 
398 

Syllabus, the, i, 61 


520 


“System, The Party,” i, 165 

“Systems, Comparison of the 
American and European,” i, 
163n. 


19 


Talleyrand, i, 6 

Tariff, the, i, 89-94, 204, 288, 
323, 324, 325, 345, 354; ii, 
I2, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 120- 
146, 198, 232, 306, 325-343, 
348, 356, 359, 380, 405-423, 
455-456, 458-460 

Tariff Commission of 1882, Re- 
port of, 2, 89-94 

“Tariff Question, First State- 
ment, on the,” 7, 89-94 

Taussig, Professor F. W., ii, 333 

‘Laxation)/7,:'31,) 00,0147, 233) 
303-304, 320, 323; ii, 28, 143, 
144, 145-146, 276, 341 

Taylor, Zackary, ii, 14 

Technical schools, i, 445; iti, 
157, 158, 166 

Tennyson, Alfred, ii, 84 

Tenure, law of, i, 233 

Texas, annexation of, ii, 14 

Texas vs. White, i, 371 

Theological schools, ii, 157 

Thiers, Louis Adolphe, i, 1 

Tilden, Samuel J., z, 209 

Times, London, i, 54 

Tocqueville, de, i, 159, 160, 172, 
173, 396 

Town meeting, New England, 
ii, 206 

Trenton, anniversary of battle 
of, 7, 416 

Trickery, party, i, 28 

Trusts, ii, 137, 405-423, 455- 
456.—See also Combinations, 
great; Corporations; Meat 
Trust; Sugar Trust 

“Trusts, The Tariff and the,” 
11, 405-423 

Tudors, the, i, 430 

Turkish Empire, i, 398 

Turner, Professor, i, 313 

Tweed ring, i, 168; i, 191 

Tyler, John, ii, 14 


INDEX 


U 


“Undergraduates, Legal Edu- 
cation of,” i, 232-245 

Union, formation of the, i, 322- 
323 

United States: Cabinet govern- 
ment in, i, 19-42; defects in 
mode of government, 19; 
liberty and prosperity in, 19; 
decline in statesmanship, 19; 
influence of universal suffrage 
on political life in, 19-20; 
representative government in, 
20; congressional committees, 
21-23; power of the Speaker 
of the House of Representa- 
tives, 21; duties and privi- 
leges of legislative, judicial, 
and executive departments, 
and relations toward each 
other, 24-26, 28, 31, 40; 
selection of Cabinet officers, 
26-27; corporations, 28; 
Bland silver bill, 29; Re- 
sumption Act of 1875, 29; 
committee government, 30, 
35, 95-129; Cabinet govern- 
ment, 30, 36, 38, 39, 95-129; 
Congress, constitution of, 30; 
statesmanship dying out in, 
35; Cabinet officers, 36; 
President’s power, 38; choice 
of Senators, 41; despotism of 
Congress, 41; John Bright 
and the Southern Confeder- 
acy, 56-58; slavery, 57; Re- 
construction, 57; Roman 
Catholic Church in, 60-62; 
public-school system, 62; min- 
ing, 92; wages in, 92; fertil- 
ity of land, 92; cotton pro- 
ductions in, 92; Reconstruc- 
tion, 368-395.—See also Con- 
gress; Constitution, Civil 
War; Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; House of Repre- 
sentatives; Monroe Doctrine; 
Revolution, American; Sen- 
ate; Slavery; South; 


INDEX 


Supreme Court; War of 
1812 

Universities, i, 443-461; ii, 102, 
106, 116, 147-159, 202, 243- 
244 

University of North Carolina, 
ii, 64 

University of Virginia, i, 43 

University of Virginia Maga- 
zine, i, 43, 60, 63 

University, state, iz, 202 


“University, The Ideal,” i, 
147-159 
“Usage, Development of the 


Constitution by, i, 175 


V 


Van Buren, Martin, iz, 15 

Venezuelan dispute, i, 306 

Vilas, William F., z, 299 

Virginia bill of rights, 7, 341, 
385-386 

Virginia, General Assembly of, 
ii, 367 

Voting, Australian method of, 
il, 213 


W 


Wade, Senator, i, 375; ii, 7 

Wages, i, 92; ii, 335, 364, 461- 
462 

Wall Street, ii, 59 

Walpole, Robert, i, 17 

War, French and Indian, 7, 259, 
BO2 W21 G21 4/322 

War of Independence, i, 416.— 
See also Revolution, Ameri- 
can 

War of 1812, i, 315, 424; ii, 13 

Warner, A. J., i, 293 

Washburne, Elihu, i, 202 

Washington, George, i, 179- 
186, 265, 266, 267, 273, 286, 
61751321) /322, 850; 335;1337> 
342, 345, 359, 417, 420, 422, 
428, 429; it, 69, 341 

Waterloo, i, 79 

“Wealth, predatory,” i, 30 


521 


Webster, Daniel, i, 33, 80, 331; 
1075314; 05%. 715.435 

Wellington, Duke of, i, 79 

“West! (4) 823,) 31510310). 322, 
324, 325, 327, 328, 329 

West, Professor, i, 491 

Western Association of Prince- 
ton Clubs, i, 491 

Westminster Abbey, i, 11 

Westminster Scrutiny, i, 66 

“What Is College For?” a, 
160-177 

“What Jefferson Would Do,” 
ii, 424-429 

Whig party, iz, 14, 15, 16 

White, Horace, ii, 391 

Whitney, William C., 7, 209, 
213, 299 

William and Mary, College of, 
1298 

William, King, i,5, 7; Emperor, 
t, 7, 9 

William of Germany, i, 306 

Wilmot, David, ii, 15 

Wilson, James, i, 335 

Wilson, Woodrow: first article, 
on “Prince Bismark,” i, I-10; 
sophomore at Princeton, i, I; 
prize essay on “William, Earl 
Chatham,” signed ‘Thomas 
W. Wilson, ’79, of N .C.,” 7 


11-18; article on “Cabinet 
Government in the United 
States,” i, 19-42; Henry 


Cabot Lodge his first pub- 
lisher, i, 19; oration on John 
Bright, 7, 43-59; post-graduate 
student, i, 43; debate, “Is the 
Roman Catholic Element in 
the United States a menace 
to American Institutions?” i, 
60-62; article, “Mr. Glad- 
stone: a character sketch,” i, 
63-88 ; testimony before tariff 
commission, 89; _ practicing 
law in Atlanta, i, 89; “Com- 
mittee or Cabinet Govern- 
ment?” i, 95-129; student at 
Johns Hopkins, i, 95; parties, 
i, 109-129; press, i, 117, 121; 


522 


“The Study of Administra- 
tion,” i, 130-158; teacher at 
Bryn Mawr, i, 130; civil ser- 
vice reform, i, 130, I41, 144- 
145; Bryce’s American Com- 
commonwealth, i, 159-178; 
teacher at Wesleyan, i, 159; 
judge-made law, i, 174; ad- 
dress on “The One Hun- 
dredth Anniversary of the In- 
auguration of George Wash- 
ington,” iz, 179-186; the Re- 
United States, i, 179; “A 
System of Political Science 
and Constitutional Law,” i, 
187-197; professor at Prince- 
ton, i, 187; “Mr. Cleveland’s 
Cabinet,” i, 198-222; answer 
to the query, “Should an 
Antecedent Liberal Education 
Be Required of Students in 
Law, Medicine, and The- 
ology?” i, 223-231; address 
on “Legal Education of 
Undergraduates,” i, 232-245; 
society, i, 232-233; capital 
and labor, z, 232; law, the, i, 
232-245; “University Train- 
ing and Citizenship,’ i, 246- 
258; oration on “Princeton in 
the Nation’s Service,” i, 259- 
285; “Mr. Cleveland as 
President,’ i, 286-309; 
“Making of the Nation,” i, 
310-335; address, ‘“Leader- 
less Government,” i, 336- 
359; address, “The Puritan,” 
i, 360-367; ‘““The Reconstruc- 
tion of the Southern States,” 
i, 368-395; “Democracy and 
Efficiency,” i, 396-415; “The 
Ideals of America,” i, 416- 
442; president of Princeton 
University, i, 416; inaugural 
address as president of 
Princeton University, i, 443- 
461; service of universities, i, 
443-461; “Princeton’s Ser- 
vice for the Nation,” 432, 
443-461; “Princeton’s Ideals,” 


INDEX 


i, 462-473; “Young People 
and the Church,” i, 474-486; 
“Princeton Preceptorial Sys- 
tem,” i, 487-498; “Report on 
the Social Codédrdination of 
the University,’ i, 499-521; 
address to Board of Trustees, 
Princeton University, i, 51I- 
52631 he Polticssmeumienlens 5 
“Law or Personal Power,” 
it, 24-31; “The States and 
the Federal Government,” ii, 
32-53; “Robert E. Lee: An 
Interpretation,” 7, 64-82; 
“Abraham Lincoln: A Man of 
the People,” ii, 83-101; “The 
Spirit of Learning,” ii, 102- 
119; “The Tariff Make-Be- 
lieve,” ii, 120- 146; “The Ideal 
University,” ii, 147-159; 
“What Is College For?” ii, 
160-177; “The Ministry and 
the Individual,” 7, 178-187; 
“Political Reform,” i, 188- 
192; “Living Principles of 
Democracy,” ii, 193-201; ad- 
dress to Pittsburgh Alumni of 
Princeton, ii, 202-203; “Hide 
and Seek Politics,’ ii, 204- 
224; “Bankers and States- 
manship,” iz, 225-233; bac- 
calaureate address, 234-244; 
“The Lawyer and the Com- 
munity,” zi, 245-268; Letter of 
resignation from Princeton 
University, i, 269; nomina- 
tion for Governor of New 
Jersey, ii, 269; inaugural ad- 
dress as Governor of New 
Jersey, ii, 270-282; “Issues of 
Freedom,” ii, 283-290; ‘“The 
Bible and Progress,” ii, 291- 
302; “Democracy’s Opportun- 
ity,” ii, 303-309; ‘““The Lawyer 
in Politics,” ii, 310-317; “The 
Rights of the Jews,” ii, 318- 
322; “On the Initiative, 
Referendum and Recall,” i 
323-324; “The Tariff,” i, 
325-343; Jackson Day din- 


INDEX 


ner address, iti, 344-3533 
“Efficiency,” ii, 354-366; ad- 
dress at Richmond, Va., i, 
367-388; Lincoln’s birthday 
address, ii, 389-404; “The 
Tariff and the Trusts,” i, 
405-423; “What Jefferson 
Would Do,” i, 424-429; 
“Government in Relation to 
Business,” ii, 430-451; speech 
accepting presidential nomina- 
tion, i, 452-474.—See also 
“Atticus” 

Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow, i, 179 

Wilson, W. L., i, 303 

Witherspoon, John, i, 262-274, 
460; ii, 61 

Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, i, 
19 


523 


Workingmen, American, versus 
foreign, ti, 335 
Working people, care of, it, 468. 


—See also Compensation, 
Workmen’s; Wages 
Workmen’s compensation, i, 
273 


We 


Yeardly, Sir George, i, 336 

Yorktown, 1, 420 

“Young People and 
Church,” i, 474-486 


the 


Zz 
Zeus, 1, 154 


END OF VOLUME II 








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